December 1, 2005
WHAT PROGRESS?:
Kurdish Oil Deal Shocks Iraq's Political Leaders: A Norwegian company begins drilling in the north without approval from Baghdad (Borzou Daragahi, December 1, 2005, LA Times)
A controversial oil exploration deal between Iraq's autonomy-minded Kurds and a Norwegian company got underway this week without the approval of the central government here, raising a potentially explosive issue at a time of heightened ethnic and sectarian tensions.The Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls a portion of the semiautonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, last year quietly signed a deal with Norway's DNO to drill for oil near the border city of Zakho. Iraqi and company officials describe the agreement as the first involving new exploration in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Drilling began after a ceremony Tuesday, during which Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish northern region, vowed "there is no way Kurdistan would accept that the central government will control our resources," according to news agency reports.
Forget the astonished Iraqis, didn't the Left promise us we'd steal that oil? Posted by Orrin Judd at December 1, 2005 8:21 AM
If by us they meant the Viking arm of Halliburton, why yes, yes indeedy.
Halliburton! It's everywhere!
Posted by: Mikey at December 1, 2005 11:28 AMUm, if we're going to pretend that we're implementing a federal system in Iraq, this kind of thing really can't happen. I have no major problem with supporting a partition, but we need to have some minimum level of coherence & consistency with whatever plan we pick.
Posted by: b at December 1, 2005 11:30 AMThat's their job now, surely. Let the Sunnis complain about it to the Kurds.
Posted by: joe shropshire at December 1, 2005 12:08 PMoj: I concede. TX should be able to control its own oil, of course. Too quick to post on "appearances" without thinking of the actual substance...
Posted by: b at December 1, 2005 1:00 PMForget Halliburton. Clearly, the entire war has been a Norwegian plot from the beginning!
No blood for lutefisk!
Posted by: Timothy at December 1, 2005 2:13 PM