Iraq, KRG leaders start oil talks

BAGHDAD, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Talks are ongoing over oil and other disputes between Iraq's central government and the semiautonomous Kurdish region.

Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, has been in Baghdad for half a week meeting with leaders.

Mahmoud Othman, a parliamentarian in Baghdad representing the Kurdistan Coalition, said talks began in earnest over the weekend with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, focusing mainly on controversial oil deals the Kurds have signed without Baghdad's permission.

"There was a positive atmosphere that preceded the meeting and a genuine will on both sides to reach a common understanding," Othman said. "The talks are hopefully to bring about fruitful outcome."

Also being discussed is the referendum on disputed territories in the north, including oil-rich Kirkuk, as well as the KRG budget.

But the oil deals are the main impetus for the meeting. The KRG has accused Iraq's national government of moving too slow, and reneging, on a national oil law. Instead it has passed its own regional law and signed 20 oil deals with foreign firms.

Hussain al-Shahristani, the national oil minister, has called them illegal. The feud over the deals is a wedge breaking apart sides even further.

The Kurdistan Coalition is a major part of the governing coalition in Baghdad, and as such the KRG has taken relatively little official heat over the deals.

But a growing number of political parties are being more vocal in opposition of the KRG oil moves, citing them as unilateral and against a strategic development of the oil sector.