Iraqi Kurds, Sunnis complain about new oil law

Iraq's Kurdish and Sunni leaders on Wednesday complained they were being kept in the dark over oil legislation set to go before parliament, saying they had not seen the final bill approved by cabinet.
The amended oil bill a key plank in efforts to help unite the country's warring communities was endorsed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government on Tuesday and forwarded to parliament for a first reading. Parliament was however unlikely to handle the legislation on Wednesday as initially expected.
"The reading of the draft oil is not on the agenda of the parliament session today," Khalid Attiya, acting speaker of Iraq's 275-member parliament, told AFP.
The northern Kurdish administration, a key party to the negotiations on the legislation, said it had "not seen and approved the final text of the law."
"We hope that the cabinet is not approving a text with which the KRG (Kurdish Regional Government) disagrees because this would violate the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan Region," a statement from the northern regional administration said.
The draft law was first approved by the Baghdad cabinet in February but Iraq's warring Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions later demanded a number of amendments. The Kurdish administration said it was uncertain as to which version of the law was approved on Tuesday, although Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the latest text contained only linguistic changes to the February draft.
"While the KRG is happy with the legal committee's language improvements and restructuring of the legal text, we reject its changes to the substance of the law," the Kurdish government said.
"If it has agreed to the version that included material and substantive changes, the KRG rejects this document. We have not been informed which text the Iraqi cabinet has approved." It was unclear how many ministers were present at Tuesday's cabinet meeting, as six ministers from the Moqtada al-Sadr group and six ministers from the Sunni bloc are currently boycotting the government. A number of foreign companies have already entered into contracts with the Kurdish government and the Kurds fear that the new law may lead to the termination of the deals.