Kirkuk’s Turkmen warn of escalating rivalries in oil dispute

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Turkmen official in Kirkuk said “taking over” Kirkuk’s oil by any group or party will escalate rivalries. He added that Turkmen were “unaware” of any agreement between Erbil and Baghdad to resolve the oil dispute in the city.

 

“Taking over Kirkuk’s oil by one element and party will escalate rivalries, so that it will not be possible to reach an agreement about Kirkuk’s political situation or administration in the future,” Arshad Salihi, head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, said on Monday. He called on “Baghdad to hold responsibility for Kirkuk’s oil.”

 

He added that his party and other Turkmen officials in Kirkuk were “unaware of the Erbil-Baghdad agreement about Kirkuk’s oil,” reportedly reached at the end of August.

 

He is concerned because, like Kurds “Turkmen must have their share in Kirkuk’s oil too.”

 

At least 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Kirkuk will be jointly exported to Turkey by Erbil and Baghdad, sources told Rudaw after a meeting between a delegation from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad at the end of August.

 

The agreement will mean that 75,000 bpd will be exported by the Kurdistan Region and an equal volume by Baghdad to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the sources said.

 

Responding to Salihi’s comments, a Kurdish MP representing Kirkuk in the Iraqi parliament told Rudaw that Kirkuk’s oil revenues will “equally” be shared among all groups living in Kirkuk. 

 

“The Kirkuk oil revenue is for all peoples and groups living in Kirkuk equally,” said Shakawan Abdullah, noting that the Erbil-Baghdad agreement was not signed between two political parties, but rather it is between two governments.

 

He also added that Kirkuk provincial authorities, consisting of all ethnic groups in the city, are aware of the agreement.

 

Abdullah believes that Turkmen would be better off siding with Kurds over Baghdad in the oil dispute. “The Turkmen’s main interest should lie in taking the Kurdistan Region’s side rather than the Iraqi government’s,” he said, “because even up to now, Turkmen hold no ministerial or army posts.”

 

Iraq stopped exporting oil from Kirkuk five months ago over a row with Erbil about Kurdistan exporting its oil independently. That worsened an economic crisis on both sides, whose coffers are being severely strapped by the war with the Islamic State (ISIS).

Since Iraq stopped exporting Kirkuk’s oil, there have been many suggestions of how the cash-strapped province could sell its oil.