Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti
travelled to the main city Arbil.
"To export, we have to talk to the central government. But for
our domestic use, we don't have to ask anyone. It belongs to us.
It's our country," said Siwaily.
"We're now producing 20,000 barrels a day. We need 100,000
for our domestic use alone. It's our oil, it's our right."
The federal parliament has been attempting to hammer out a
deal regarding national oil policy and to negotiate the delicate
issue of sharing resources between the regions.
The Shiite majority in the south and Kurdish majority in the
north have plentiful oil reserves.
But the Sunnis in central Iraq have little oil and insist policy is
centralised through Baghdad, an approach not shared by the
Kurdish regional authorities but backed by Washington.
US authorities want the oil revenues to be shared equally among
the 18 provinces of Iraq, especially the Sunnis in a bid to wipe
out the Sunni-led insurgency against its troops.
Commenting on the oil contracts signed in Arbil on November 7,
Hawrami said: "In Kurdistan, we are setting the example: this is
only the first post-Saddam framework for oil investment in Iraq
that follows the democratic, federal, and free-market principles
SIk àeurjjork STuncs
November 18, 2007
mandated by the Iraqi constitution."
The Kurdish authorities are attempting to reassure Baghdad and
the other communities that they are happy with rules that res¬
trict them to retaining only the 17 percent of export earnings.
At the federal level, this figure of 17 percent is also the portion
of the national budget granted to the Kurdish region.
"We know that if we want to export anything, we'll have to
share: 17 percent for us only," said Siwaily. "We have no pro¬
blem with that."
"They are still discussing this oil law at the federal level. It could
take them another two or three years. We're not going to wait.
We have lost enough time already.
"Here, we have enough oil and gas for all the Middle East. It's
our oil, our country. You'll see, we don't need more than two or
three years to develop everything and cover our domestic
needs."
Among the contracts recently signed, is one for a gas collection
and a refinery to supply the electricity stations, which experts
says make the problem of regional power cuts a distant memo¬
ry.
Iraq credits Iran with helping calm
violence
Spokesman also says government wants Sunni ministers back
Alissa J. Rubin. New York Times
The Iraqi government on Saturday credited
Iran with helping to rein in Shiite militias
and stemming the flow of weapons into Iraq,
improving the security situation noticeably.
The Iraqi government's spokesman, Ali al-
Dabbagh, speaking at a lunch for reporters, also
said that the Shiite-dominated government is
making renewed efforts to bring back Sunni
Arab ministers who have been boycotting the
government for more than four months.
Speaking about Iran, he said that government
helped to persuade the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-
Sadr to ask his Mahdi militia to halt attacks. Al-
Sadr ordered his militia to stop using weapons
in early September, and officials say the standdown
by Mahdi members has helped improve
stability. They say it also seems to have helped
decrease the frequency of attacks with explosi¬
vely formed penetrators, a powerful type of
bomb that can pierce heavy armor.
Al-Dabbagh is the first Iraqi official to say
publicly that Iran has used its influence with al-
Sadr to discourage him from using his militia
for armed attacks.
Since al-Sadr gave his order in mid-September,
the numbers of unidentified bodies found on
the streets of Baghdad daily has rarely exceeded
a half-dozen. When his militia was active there
were often as many as 30 or more unidentified
bodies found daily.
"The freezing of the Mahdi Army makes us feel
they have good intentions," al-Dabbagh said.
"Iran played a role in this."
Al-Dabbagh said the turning point came when
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Iran in
August and met with the country's supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khame¬
nei, in the Shiite shrine city of
Mashad. Al-Maliki told the
Iranian leader that "Iran had
to choose whether to support
the government or any other
party and Iraq will decide
according to which they
choose," al-Dabbagh said.
The Iranians promised to
help and have done so,
said.
he
About the parliament, al-
Dabbagh said the government
wants the Sunni Arab bloc to
return and that he believes a
government with the bloc "in
it is better than one without
it."
In one concession, al-Maliki has made a point
of allowing a lengthy debate and review on the
execution of Sultan Hashim Ahmed, the minis¬
ter of defense under Saddam Hussein. In Sep¬
tember, Hashim was found guilty of crimes
against humanity and sentenced to hang. Objec¬
tions from some Kurds and Sunni Arabs, who
believe he was not responsible for the policies
he was forced to enact, have halted his execu¬
tion while the judiciary and the government
review the case.
The Cabinet has sent legislation to the parlia¬
ment revising the de-Baathifkation law that
had presented obstacles to former Baathists'
working in government jobs. The new proposal,
which has been agreed to by the Sunni Arab
bloc as well as the Kurdish and Shiite leaders,
would let an additional 10,000 people take
government positions, including many Sunni
Arabs. It would also guarantee that all former
government employees would be eligible to
collect their pensions.
Also in a move to spur reconciliation between
Shiites and Sunnis, the government announced
it will pay one million Iraqi denars, about $812,
to every displaced family that returns home.
More than 150,000 families, roughly 900,000
Iraqis, have fled their homes because of the
recent violence, and about 95,000 of those
families are in Baghdad, said Dr. Abdul-Samad
Rahman Sultan, Iraq's minister of displacement
and migration.
Also, 30 skeletons were found Saturday in Hor
Jab, a rural Sunni Arab area on Baghdad's
southern edge that until early October was
controlled by al Qaeda in Iraq.
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