“Baghdad should send the region its share of the budget,” Safeen Dizayee, the spokesperson for the government of semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, told NIQASH. “The decision taken by Baghdad [not to send the money] means that the budget law has lost its meaning. Iraqi Kurdistan has stuck to its side of the deal and is now exporting 250,000 barrels per day. That number is rising every day. The problems before lay in the fact that Kirkuk couldn’t export its share of oil because of technical problems.”
The ongoing dispute, which looked like it might have been moving towards some sort of resolution up until relatively recently, has seen a few antagonistic reactions from local decision makers as well as fears about potential repercussions all round.
At the recent Sulaymaniyah Forum, held at the American University of Iraq earlier this month, the two oil ministers from Baghdad and Erbil faced off. Iraq's Minister of Oil, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, said that Iraqi Kurdistan has only met about 40 percent of it's commitments. At the same meeting, Iraqi Kurdistan's Minister for Natural Resources,Ashti Hawrami, denied this and argued that his region had met 97 percent of their commitments.
Energy and Natural Resources committee member Salih told NIQASH that if Baghdad doesn't deliver on promises soon that Iraqi Kurdistan will stop sending SOMO oil and go back to exporting independently.
If oil prices remain as they are and Iraqi Kurdistan's output can be maintained, then the region will strive for financial independence, selling oil all by itself, Salih maintained. However he was not able to specify who might buy the oil or how sales mechanisms might work.
Just want to mention one thing, the kurds did not get their yearly budget which led them to the only option to export independently. Iraq led Kurdistan to this not the opposite remember this.