BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 — A senior State Department official in Baghdad acknowledged
Thursday that the first American oil contract in Iraq, that of the Hunt Oil
Company of Dallas with the Kurdistan Regional Government, was at cross purposes
with the stated United States foreign policy of strengthening the country’s
central government.
“We believe these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the K.R.G.
and the national government of Iraq,” the official said, referring to the
Kurdistan Regional Government. The official was not authorized to speak for
attribution on the oil contract.
The tensions between Kurdistan and the central government go well beyond the oil
law. Already a semiautonomous region for more than 15 years, Kurdistan in many
respects functions as independent state and wants as much latitude as possible
to run its region. Recently, the Kurdistan government has pushed to extend its
borders to include nearby areas that have sizable Kurdish populations.
Hunt Oil, a closely held company, signed a production-sharing agreement with the
Kurdistan Regional Government this month. The company’s chief executive and
president, Ray L. Hunt, is a close political ally of President Bush and serves
on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Hunt Oil and the Kurds signed the contract after the Kurdish government passed a
regional oil law in August. But it is unclear how the regional law will interact
with a national oil law under discussion in the Iraqi Parliament.
Under draft versions of the national law, the central government would have a
say in whether individual oil contracts are legal. The Iraqi national oil law is
one of the 18 benchmarks established by the Bush administration to evaluate the
Iraqi government’s progress.
The senior official said the State Department had advised Hunt Oil, before the
signing, that contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government might contravene
Iraqi law once national oil legislation was passed by the Iraqi Parliament. “We
think they are legally uncertain,” the official said of Hunt’s contracts with
the Kurdistan government.
Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has said the Hunt Oil contract is
not valid, though there is a provision for reviewing and possibly approving it
in the proposed oil law. The intent of that law is to pool oil revenue to
distribute it equitably to the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish areas of Iraq.
The embassy official said at least four other American and international oil
companies had consulted with the State Department about energy investment in
Iraq, and all received the same advice.
Kurdistan faced trouble from neighboring countries on Thursday because of the
activities of Kurdish separatists who are using the region as a redoubt from
which to launch attacks on Iran and Turkey. Kurdish officials said that Iran
shelled two areas along the region’s eastern border on Wednesday evening. Ten
Iranian artillery shells struck Rayan, a small village about 15 miles from the
Iranian border, destroying four houses and killing villagers’ animals. Twelve
Iranian shells also hit the Qandil Mountains close to the border, said Jaza
Hussein Ahmed, the mayor of nearby Qalat. There were no casualties reported.
Iraqi Kurdish officials bristled Thursday at word that the Iraqi central
government would sign an agreement with Turkey on Friday that Kurds fear might
pave the way for Turkish soldiers to cross into Iraq to pursue Turkish Kurdish
separatists who take refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Turkey has long been in an armed conflict with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’
Party), which launches hit-and-run attacks on Turkey from camps in the northern
Iraqi mountains. They are fighting for autonomy for Turkey’s predominantly
Kurdish southeast.
