Kurdish officials said on Thursday they had reached agreement with the central government on equitably sharing revenues from Iraq's oilfields but that negotiations would continue on other disputed clauses.
Earlier, Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said all the areas of dispute in a landmark draft oil law had been resolved and the bill had been submitted to parliament. The draft, crucial to regulating how wealth from Iraq's huge reserves will be shared by its sectarian and ethnic groups, was approved by the cabinet in February but faced stiff opposition from Kurds, who felt they were getting a bad deal.
Most oil reserves in Iraq are in the Kurdish north and Shia south. Khalid Saleh, spokesman for the Kurdistan regional government, said agreement had been reached on Wednesday on a revenue sharing mechanism.
Under the deal, the Kurdistan region will take 17 percent of all oil revenue from Iraq. The money will be deposited into a Kurdistan regional account in the central bank. "This deal is a big victory for the political process in Iraq," Saleh told Reuters. But, he said the annexes in the draft had not yet been discussed.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.