ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kirkuk provincial governor said Friday he will relinquish his position smoothly when his term concludes as part of a power-sharing rotation, while also revealing new diplomatic efforts with Turkey to resolve regional oil export disputes and rehabilitate pipeline infrastructure.
"We came to serve Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Christians," Mohammed Samaan Agha told Rudaw’s Shko Omar on the sidelines of the Eighth Baghdad Dialogue Forum, adding, "Whenever our duties are completed, we will hand it over democratically and easily."
Agha is the first Turkmen governor of Kirkuk in over a century. His appointment followed a prolonged political deadlock within the 16-seat provincial council, where competing factions struggled to form a local government.
Despite the rotation process having faced strong opposition from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which rejected the agreements leading to the vote and criticized the arrangements as “outside the legitimacy and will of the Kirkuk voter” and therefore “unacceptable to the KDP,” the governor described the agreement as a "successful national initiative," suggesting the Iraqi parliament draft a legal framework to implement the model in other provinces.
"After 102 years, I secured the governorship; the last Turkmen governor was Fattah Pasha in 1924," Agha said, noting the marginalization of Turkmen since the monarchical era.
Shifting to the province's energy sector, Agha detailed recent efforts to mediate oil disputes between Erbil, Baghdad and Ankara, citing his meeting with Turkish energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar following the Iraqi ministerial delegation’s return from Ankara.
Agha shared that he was able to “reach common ground that serves the interests of both Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, particularly concerning the international arbitration case and the purchasing of oil without reverting to the State Oil Marketing Organization."
The governor said local authorities are working with BP to develop the future of Kirkuk’s oil, aiming to increase oil exports from 750,000 barrels per day to more than 1 million bpd.
"Next Wednesday, the Turkish deputy minister of energy will visit Kirkuk and tour the North Oil and North Gas companies regarding the rehabilitation of the pipelines," Agha said, adding that a Turkish company has signed a contract with Syria to begin restoring the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline, noting that more than 120 kilometers of the pipeline are currently missing on the Syrian side.
