ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The tanker that lifted the first shipment of piped Kurdish oil at the Turkish port of Ceyhan late last month has arrived at its destination, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced.
"The tanker (carrying Kurdish oil) has reached its destination," said KRG Spokesman Safeen Dizayee. “We are insisting on exporting oil, and it is sold according to market price and quality," he added.
The KRG sold its first oil shipment through the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan on May 22. Iraq’s central government reacted to the move by the autonomous Kurdish enclave by filing a lawsuit at the International Arbitration Court in Paris against Turkey, on grounds it was allowing the sale of "smuggled Iraqi oil."
The United Leadership tanker, which was carrying the Kurdish oil, had seemingly originally set course for the United States Gulf Coast, according to vessel tracking services quoted by international news agencies.
The tanker was then reportedly stationary off the coast of Morocco for several days, but then sailed to the Moroccan coastal city of Mohammedia on the Atlantic Ocean, according to the tracking services.
Since the oil was picked up and the tanker set sail from Ceyhan, the KRG never announced the identity of the buyer, or where the cargo was destined for.
Turkey, which has made no secret of its intention to gain access to Kurdish oil to fuel its growing industrialized economy, has denied the strong Iraqi accusations of wrongdoing.
“I don’t find it right to say things to Turkey that cannot be told to anybody else,” Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said, in response to questions about the issue.
“The income to be generated from here (exports) will be distributed with a system that our Iraqi brothers established by themselves,” the Hurriyet daily quoted him as sayiing in Ankara.
Yildiz defended Turkey’s policy of facilitating the export and sale of oil from the Kurdistan Region, saying it would lead to stronger relations with Iraq.
“Think the exact opposite: Would it be better for Iraq if Turkey wasn’t letting Iraqi oil to flow through it? It wouldn’t. We are a neighbor, friend and fraternal country that is laying the basis for the transmission of Iraqi oil to world markets,” he said.
Yildiz rejected accusations by Iraq’s deputy prime minister for energy, Hussein Shahristani, who told the AFP news agency: “We believe Turkey has been driven by greed to try to lay (its) hands on cheap Iraqi oil.”
But Ylidiz responded, “This oil is not Turkey’s, it is Iraq’s, and the income to be yielded from here will be Iraq’s income.”
The oil issue has been at the center of one of the worst rows between the KRG and the Shiite Arab-led government in Baghdad.
Erbil opened its new pipeline to Ceyhan in December, but after strong opposition from Baghdad Ankara said it would hold off on allowing the sales until consent from the central government.
But after months of bickering and acrimony, including Baghdad freezing Erbil out of the national budget for months, no agreement was reached.
Yildiz, who had warned that storage tanks at Ceyhan for Kurdish oil were filled to capacity with 2.5 million barrels of piped Kurdish gas, then confirmed that the first oil sales had begun.
The bone of contention between Erbil and Baghdad has been over who controls revenues. The Kurds rejected demands by Baghdad that the sales should be conducted by the State Oil Marketing Organization, inviting SOMO only as an observer.
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