PM Barzani: Shiite Militias should be Regulated

Al-Monitor:  How so?

Barzani:  The economic agreement we reached with Baghdad was within the framework of the budgetary law of 2015. Under this arrangement we are supposed to deliver an average 250,000 thousand barrels of crude from our own production to the Iraqi government and export 300,000 barrels of Kirkuk oil through the KRG Turkish pipeline. Baghdad claims that we can export 550,000 barrels every day, including the 300,000 from Kirkuk. This is currently impossible. It’s technically impossible. We are building up toward that but it will take time.

Baghdad also claims that we have extra production and that we are selling this to others instead of giving it to them. We have prior contracts that we need to fulfill, advance sales, which we need to honor. Baghdad is looking to have full control [over oil sales]. We will not give them control over our oil. It is impossible. We are ready for cooperation. But we also retain the right to make direct oil sales as the Kurdistan regional government. Baghdad owes us $12 billion from last year. If they are ready to give us our money, we can negotiate.

Al-Monitor:  What have they given you so far?

Barzani:  $250 million (erupts in laughter).

Al-Monitor:  Does this make Turkey your main benefactor?

Barzani:  If it were not for Turkey we would not have been able to pay our civil servants’ salaries throughout 2014. We export our oil through Turkey, through the Ceyhan terminal.

Al-Monitor:  KRG President Massoud Barzani went public with the disappointment he felt with Turkey over its failure to intervene when you came under attack from Daesh last August. How are your relations now?

Barzani:  There was definitely a degree of disappointment.

Our expectations from Turkey were quite high. We wanted Turkish jets to immediately bomb Daesh. Turkey has a military presence here already. They have tanks. They have troops inside our borders in Barmarne [near the Turkish border]. We felt they could have engaged immediately.

Al-Monitor:  Did you call them and ask them to?

Barzani:  Of course we did. Immediately. I personally made the first phone calls to [then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and to [then-Foreign Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu. He was on the phone with me until 3 a.m. in the morning. In fact, Turkish officials acknowledged to us that they had moved slowly. But it doesn’t mean they didn’t do anything. Just to give you an example. In the first few days of the attack they sent us several truckloads of ammunition.

Turkey has set up refugee camps in the Dahuk area. And in terms of financial relief, the Turkish government gave us half a billion US dollars last year and another half a billion dollars is on its way. And most important, Turkey allowed the passage of our peshmerga fighters through its own territory to Kobani.