WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Iraqi Kurdistan's oil minister, Ashti Hawrami, begins his U.S. tour of political and business leaders from Washington to Texas a hot item with international oil companies, but with icy relations with his counterpart in Baghdad.

He has signed around 20 oil deals with international oil companies, most after the national oil minister labeled them illegal.

Hawrami blames Baghdad for playing politics with a national oil law, prompting the Kurdistan Regional Government to move ahead with its own regional oil law in August.

And he simultaneously defends his oil deals as constitutional while condemning Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani's plans to rely on the Saddam Hussein-era legal regime to sign its own contracts.

"I tell the critics that rather than focus on these silly issues they should be focusing on doing something positive for the Iraqi people," Hawrami told United Press International in an interview.