Iraq accuses Iran of stealing its oil

BAGHDAD, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Iraq's Foreign Ministry says it has passed on a letter of warning to Tehran regarding accusations Iran is illegally pumping Iraqi oil.

Accusations started over the weekend that Iran is stealing Iraqi oil, and actually forced Iraqis off the oil fields. The deputy chief of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity also says Iran is behind smuggling of oil and fuel products, and blames Iraq's Oil Ministry for not doing enough. He also named the Fadhila Party, which controls the southern oil province of Basra and the southern oil protection force, as well as the current head of the CPI, also a Fadhila Party member, of being complicit in the smuggling.

"The Foreign Ministry, via Iraq's embassy in Tehran, sent the (Iraq) Oil Ministry's memo to the Iranian government demanding cessation of all activities on these fields pending the signing of an agreement in this regard," Iraq Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Muhammad al-Hadj Hammoud told the Voices of Iraq news agency.

"A delegation will visit Iran to discuss border issues, including the joint Iraqi-Iranian oilfields," he said.

Iran denies the accusations, Iran's Press TV reports, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseni says there is no evidence.

Faraj Moussa, deputy head of the Iraq Commission on Public Integrity, told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper he has evidence Iran "seized" at least 15 oil wells in southern Iraq, along the Iranian border. He says he passed that information, along with evidence of oil and fuel smuggling, to the Iraq Parliament.

"Iraqi reports have documented the Iranian violations of the Iraqi wells, by diagonal digging" -- commonly known as slant drilling -- "exceeding the borders and seizing the oil wells after expelling the Iraqi engineering cadres and workers," he said.

Moussa told Radio Sawa the Iraqi Oil Ministry is unable to keep tabs on the production and flow of crude and refined products, and said the Iraqi coast guard is too small to catch smugglers.

Abdulkarim al-Aibi, the Oil Ministry inspector general, criticized Moussa's reports, Azzaman reports. He also alleged Kuwait is a major culprit of stealing Iraqi oil along those two countries' border fields.

Moussa's report did mention Kuwait as a factor in fuel smuggling and theft.