KRG: Shahristani 'totally unacceptable'

IRBIL, Iraq, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Iraq’s Kurdistan government has issued a statement warning the federal oil minister on comments he made criticizing Kurdish moves in the oil sector.

Hussain al-Shahristani said last week a new production-sharing contract the Kurdistan Regional Government signed with Dallas-based firm Hunt Oil was illegal and the federal government had the sole right to sign such deals.

The KRG statement called Shahristani’s remarks “totally unacceptable.”

The KRG points to the 2005 constitution and interprets it to allow the region to act if needed. The Kurds have passed their own oil law as Baghdad struggles to reach an agreement on a federal law that would govern the country’s vast oil reserves.

Without the law, Iraq relies on a two decades-old oil policy, and the KRG says its own oil law supersedes that.

The statement called for Shahristani to resign unless he works harder to resolve what the KRG terms “unconstitutional obstacles that he has created against the agreed draft oil law.” The Kurds say a version of the law it agreed to in February should be sent to Parliament.

The statement also accused Shahristani of using the term “illegal” as a way to tamp down the concerns of the oil unions and has told other countries not to sell fuel to the KRG.