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Two Iraqi parliamentary committees monitoring fiscal policy in Iraq have held two contradictory positions on the Iraqi currency “reset” project, which would delete three zeros from the currency. There has been much debate about the project's feasibility and the date of its implementation. While the parliamentary Economic Committee believes that the deletion of three zeros from the Iraqi currency would strengthen it, the parliamentary Finance Committee fears that this project would open the door to counterfeit operations. In a statement to Al-Monitor, Mudher Mohammad Saleh, former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, warned against the consequences of such a step if it is not implemented at the appropriate time. Abdul Abbas Shayya, a member of the Economic Committee in the Iraqi parliament, told Al-Monitor, “Reforming the management of the Iraqi currency now requires the deletion of three zeros. This has been endorsed by the parliamentary Economy and Investment Committee." Shayya, an MP for the State of Law Coalition led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, added that the Economic Committee "asked the government and the Central Bank to quickly replace the current Iraqi currency with another that is less [in value] by three zeros." "The Iraqi currency is weak, and the money supply has amounted to multi-trillions because of the existence of these useless zeros," he said. "The country will witness a significant increase in oil revenues, financial earnings and high budgets. Thus, we need to print new banknotes, as estimated by the Central Bank." "Iraq would need about 9 billion banknotes in the event of applying the deletion of zeros. Iraq today is dealing with 4 billion banknotes," he said. MP Nahida Daini of Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya List agrees with Shayya, her colleague in the Economic Committee. In an interview with Al-Monitor, she stressed the need to implement the Iraqi currency “reset” project. However, she said that the government fears money laundering operations in the event of the project's implementation. She said, "The Economic Committee last week requested to implement the deletion of zeros from the currency, but the Council of Ministers asked to delay the process for fear of money laundering operations." Daini believes that the government's fears "are mere concerns." She said, "There are regulators in Iraq who can follow up and ensure the integrity of the project." Meanwhile, the parliamentary Finance Committee believes that channelling resources toward ensuring the stability of the local currency exchange rate is better than the deletion of zeros. Magda al-Tamimi, member of the parliamentary Finance Committee, told Al-Monitor, "The delay in deleting zeros from the currency was due to fears of possible fraud operations. The Finance Committee is currently focused on controlling the currency auction," which is carried out by the Central Bank to ​​provide merchants with hard currency necessary for import. Iraq’s fiscal policy has come under criticism due to the fluctuation of local currency exchange rates against global currencies. According to Tamimi, "Iraq is not ready to control the possible currency fraud that may result from the deletion of zeros." The Finance Committee, Tamimi added, "is now working toward controlling the Iraqi currency auction, which is witnessing a significant fluctuation in the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar." "Development is the gateway to strengthening the currency. Thus, raising the value of the dinar is more important than the deletion of zeros," she said. Saleh told Al-Monitor, "The deletion of three zeros from the currency means deleting three grades from the calculation records of the Republic of Iraq. The decision to implement the deletion of zeros next year is very dangerous and risky. This issue must be done at the appropriate time." Saleh added, "We need to reform the currency management and accounting systems in the country in general. This can only be initiated in a new fiscal year." "There are many encouraging positive factors to reform the currency management system," he said, also noting that the deletion of zeros "does not only involve changing the design of the currency. It implies changing the economic system in the country in general." Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/07/iraq-currency-debate-reset-fiscal-policy.html#ixzz2a5BDGKfB

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday recommended bringing Iraq one step closer to ending all U.N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad more than two decades ago after former leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait In 1990. Despite the toppling of Saddam in 2003 after a U.S.-led invasion, the United Nations has not fully lifted the sanctions. U.S.-led troops drove Iraq out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War. If the U.N. Security Council accepts Ban's recommendation, it will be a significant political boost for Baghdad as it struggles to restore its international standing a decade after Saddam's ouster. Iraq is still subject to a U.N. arms embargo and asset freeze on individuals and entities linked to Saddam. Ban has recommended that the remaining humanitarian issue between Iraq and Kuwait - related to missing Kuwaiti people and property - be dealt with under Chapter 6 of the U.N. Charter, which urges countries to peacefully resolve any conflicts. The issue is currently dealt with under Chapter 7 of the charter, which allows the U.N. Security Council to authorize actions ranging from sanctions to military intervention. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that if the Security Council agrees to Ban's recommendation, Iraq's only outstanding Chapter 7 obligation would be to pay the remaining $11 billion it owes Kuwait in compensation, the Kuwait News Agency reported. Zebari said Iraq could clear this debt by 2015 if payments continued at the current pace, according to the agency. Kuwait for years had opposed removal of Iraq from Chapter 7 due to unresolved disputes over the border, missing persons, property and other issues. But those disputes have largely been resolved. "The governments of Iraq and Kuwait have demonstrated statesmanship and respect for each other's national interests, in reaching a mutually acceptable and beneficial arrangement," Ban said in the report to the Security Council. "Should the Security Council agree with my recommendation, Iraq will exit Chapter 7 with regard to this file and will be one step closer to restoring its international standing ... an objective long sought by the leadership of the country following the removal of the regime of Saddam Hussein," he said. Ban said the U.N. political mission in Iraq should be given responsibility for facilitating the search for missing Kuwaitis and third-country nationals, or their remains, and property, including the country's national archives. The Security Council is due to discuss the issue later this month. http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-recommends-bringing-iraq-closer-ending-1990s-001840778.html

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili says the Islamic Republic is ready to expand all-out strategic cooperation with Iraq. Jalili made the remark in a Thursday meeting with Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). The Iranian official highlighted the significance of expanding public service sectors and consolidating economic infrastructures in Iraq and said, “The Iranian nation and administration are ready to expand cooperation with Iraq at the strategic level in all fields.” He further expressed optimism regarding the recent provincial council elections in Iraq and said “progress and development in Iraq can be achieved through the unity and participation of all parties and groups.” Jalili also underlined the need for Iraq to make use of the existing potentials and opportunities at its disposal, saying that the country is now in a good position to solidify its deserved place among Arab and Islamic countries. Abdul-Mahdi, for his part, highlighted Iran’s role and position in resolving regional issues. He described Tehran-Baghdad ties as excellent and friendly and said that Iraq was keen to use Iran’s experiences in the path toward progress. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/05/09/302618/iran-set-to-expand-strategic-ties-with-iraq/

Houston, Texas, USA (KRG.org) – The Kurdistan Regional Government’s Minister for Natural Resources last week at the Baker Institute in Houston said that the US administration can help Baghdad and the Kurds to resolve their disagreements on oil and gas. Dr Ashti Hawrami said, “We believe that Washington can help Iraq shepherd through a deal on energy in accordance with the Constitution to advance stability and economic wellbeing in the wider region.” Minister Hawrami went to Houston shortly after visiting Washington DC as part of a KRG ministerial delegation that met US government officials, business leaders and think tanks. In an address to the prominent think-tank at Rice University, Dr Hawrami said he had spent a fruitful week in Washington DC as part of a delegation from the KRG, identifying “many areas of common interest and ways in which the KRG can play a moderating role to shape the future of my country, Iraq, and positively influence the delicate geopolitical developments around us.” Dr Hawrami emphasised the positive effects of the KRG’s growing energy relationship with Turkey. “Iraq’s unity and upholding the federal Constitution are central to all discussions with Turkey, which will be a win-win for all concerned. Economic growth undermines geopolitical extremism and conflicts.” The key to lasting stability and unity in Iraq is to implement the power and wealth sharing provisions in Iraq’s Constitution, he said. In stark contrast to Iraq’s long history of neglecting resources in the Kurdistan Region and using oil wealth to fund regional wars, since 2005 the KRG has attracted some 50 international oil exploration and production companies from 23 countries. Collectively they have invested close to $20 billion US dollars searching for oil and gas in Kurdistan. He said the benefits of the KRG’s success in fostering a modern, progressive oil and gas industry would be shared by all Iraqis. “The KRG seeks constructive dialogue with Baghdad to resolve all outstanding oil and gas issues based on the federal Constitution as the only viable foundation for the unity of Iraq,” said Dr Hawrami. The talk at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University was organized by the Center for Energy studies. In Houston, Minister Hawrami was also invited to address the biannual Chevron Reservoir Management Forum and visited Chevron’s technology centre, where he was briefed on the latest technological advances in the oil and gas industry. http://www.krg.org/a/d.aspx?l=12&a=47315

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not win the political majority that would have enabled him to form local governments by himself, according to the results of the local elections held in 12 Iraqi provinces. In the coming period, he will be required to engage in a fierce struggle with political blocs, some of which — even Shiite ones — are his opponents. Preliminary results — leaked two days after the polls closed on Saturday [April 20] — show the country's religious minorities will get 6 out of 378 seats in the 12 provinces. The various dispersed Iraqi lists will get nearly 70 seats, while the Sadrist movement will win close to 50 seats. The State of Law coalition will receive 115 seats, whereas 80 seats will go to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). These elections, in which 6,400,777 people participated in 12 provinces, resulted in a new rise of secular and liberal forces — particularly the political alliance led by the Iraqi Communist Party, which won a number of seats in each of the provinces — although they do not constitute a major force in the local councils. Yet, the decreased number of seats for Islamists, and rise of new civil forces could probably reflect a relative shift in the public’s mood. Last year, the Iraqi parliament amended the provincial electoral law. Iraqi lawmakers, who contributed to the amendment, said that it allows small parties to be represented, based on a specific number of votes required for each seat. The ISCI, led by young cleric Ammar al-Hakim, saw a relatively good return to most provincial councils. It came second after Maliki with a minor difference, as is the case in Babylon province, where a difference of one seat sent Maliki to first place and Hakim to second. Surprisingly, the Sadrist movement sustained losses in a number of provinces, particularly in Najaf, the stronghold of Muqtada al-Sadr. In addition, it went down to the third and fourth places in the Shiite provinces, such as Babylon, Wasit and Al-Qadisiyah. A source, who refused to be named, said: “The number of voters for the movement in the Sadr City, in eastern Baghdad, fell compared to the 2009 elections.” On the activity of political blocs, local observers said that the good work of Ali Douai — the governor of Maysan province — in the province’s areas is behind his victory, where the service level has significantly improved and numerous service facilities have been established. Over the past three years, local media have focused on Douai, dressed like a trash collector, holding a broom and roaming the streets of the province to clean them up. Moreover, he came to Baghdad three months ago to protest in front of the central government’s headquarters, demanding to increase his poor city funding allocations in order to launch new development projects. Maliki lost his place at the top of the list of winners in the province of Maysan, which has a huge oil reserve. Ali Douai, who leads the Sadrist bloc in the province, came first. The State of Law coalition was the first in the capital Baghdad, and the central and southern provinces, except for Najaf where Shiite leader Adnan al-Zurfi. Zurfi who known for being an experienced man who excels in dealing with the opponents and allies, and he has a civil background, despite his good ties with some Islamists. The result of the forces in Maysan province came as follows: “The Coalition of Liberals (Muqtada al-Sadr movement) [won] nine seats, the State of Law Coalition (Nouri al-Maliki) won eight seats, the Citizen State [received] six seats, the National Partnership [took] one seat and the Dawa Party-Iraq Organization (a group that defected from Maliki) won one seat. The Gathering of National Emblem won one seat, and finally the Truth and Giving list got one seat. In the province of Wasit, “the State of Law Coalition got seven seats, the Citizen Coalition (Ammar al-Hakim) received seven seats, the Coalition of Liberals (Muqtada al-Sadr movement) [won] six seats, the Faithful Hands Gathering got two seats, the Social Justice took two seats, the Good and Giving list won one seat, the Unified Iraqiya (Ayad Allawi) won one seat, the Fair State list (Qahtan al-Jubouri, former minister of tourism and ally of the government) won one seat, and the Feyli Brotherliness list (Shiites Kurds) received one seat. The State of Law Coalition came first in the province of Diwaniyah, and obtained 120,000 votes, securing eight seats. Yet this figure is lower than what Maliki achieved in the 2009 local elections, when he managed to win 11 seats. In Diwaniyah, the Citizen Coalition came in second with 70,000, whereas the Coalition of Liberals was ranked in third place with 50,000 votes. Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Shiite leader of the ISCI and former vice president of Iraq, said: “Maliki's State of Law Coalition will lose the first place in the four provinces, where it had monopolized the first place.” Abdul-Mahdi anticipated that Maliki “will be required to establish an alliance with other blocs in all provinces, although the National Reform bloc, led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari (former Shiite prime minister), the Islamic Virtue Party and Badr Organization (a Shiite faction that defected from Amar al-Hakim) have joined his ranks. The Unified Iraqiya Coalition of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, received a painful blow and did not achieve good results. Allawi’s supporters had options that differed from his allies who preferred to run in the elections with individual lists. That was the case of Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni leader, who's the head of the Mutahidoun, and Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni leader who leads the National Dialogue Front. Nujaifi swept the country’s Sunni areas, receiving the votes of the Sunni majority Karkh district in Baghdad, and won a good number of seats. Yet, Saleh al-Mutlaq did not achieve good figures. The Al-Monitor correspondent counted the total number of votes obtained by all Iraqiya factions, which reached, according to the preliminary results leaked on Monday [April, 22], 1.5 million votes. These figures do not represent an average number of all supporters of the Iraqiya, since the elections were not held in its important strongholds of Anbar and Mosul. These two provinces were prevented from the polling, because of a government decision because of the deteriorated security [conditions]. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/iraq-provincial-elections-maliki-majority.html#ixzz2RVTYXEFP

BAGHDAD — In the face of an armed rebellion by disgruntled Sunni Muslims against his Shiite-led government, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on Thursday urged dialogue to calm tensions but vowed to continue military operations in a growing sectarian conflict that he warned could lead to a civil war like the one raging in Syria. “Security forces must impose security in Iraq, which is affected by a region teeming with sectarianism,” Mr. Maliki said in a speech broadcast to the nation on Thursday afternoon. “And now we are starting to see those problems come to us.” Mr. Maliki’s remarks came as his security forces continued to battle armed Sunni tribesmen, some linked to an insurgent group led by former officials of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, in a fight that began Tuesday morning when security forces raided a Sunni protest camp in the northern village of Hawija, near Kirkuk, that left at least 50 civilians dead and more than 100 wounded. That led to a series of revenge attacks against security forces, and the fighting intensified Wednesday in the town of Sulaiman Bek, a village north of Baghdad that was surrounded by army vehicles after insurgents had taken over government buildings. The government used helicopter gunships to shoot at militants hiding in the village, and was said to be preparing a broader assault on the town. “What happened in Hawija, and what is happening today in Sulaiman Bek and other places, is a point in which we should stop and think because it might lead to sectarian strife,” Mr. Maliki said. “Everyone would lose. Whether he is in the north, the south, east or west of Iraq, if the fire of sectarianism starts, everyone’s fingers will be burned by it.” Meanwhile, as fighting also raged in the northern city of Mosul, in Falluja and in villages surrounding Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, there were signs that Mr. Maliki’s military was fracturing along sectarian lines. Sheik Abdul Malik al-Saadi, a leading Sunni cleric who wields enormous influence over Iraq’s Sunni population, has urged members of Iraq’s security forces to abandon their posts and join the opposition to the Shiite-led government, saying they should do so just as “their brothers did in Syria.” In linking the raging civil war in Syria to the growing unrest here in Iraq, the declaration is one of the surest signs yet that the sectarian battles under way in both countries are regarded by Sunnis as two elements of a burgeoning regional sectarian conflict. The civil war in Syria pits a Sunni-led rebellion against a government dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Sheik Abdul released his statement Wednesday night from Amman, Jordan, where he lives. While he urged soldiers — he did not specify only Sunnis — to leave the military, he stopped short of endorsing an armed rebellion against the government by ordering deserting soldiers to leave their weapons behind. He told government opponents to exercise restraint “as long as the armed forces are peaceful.” “But if they open fire, then burn the land beneath them and defend yourself with courage and strength,” he said. Sheik Abdul, who fled Saddam Hussein’s repression and in recent years began to hold religious sway over Iraq’s Sunnis, has taken on a growing role in directing the waves of Sunni protests here, which began in December and this week took a violent turn with the raid on Hawija. Already, a few Sunni members of Iraq’s army are deserting, said Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk, the province where Hawija is located. The desertions underscore how speed with which the situation here is beginning to mimic the early stages of the civil war in Syria, when government forces turned their weapons on peaceful Sunni-led protests, spurring desertions from soldiers unwilling to kill members of their own sect. “The Sunnis certainly don’t want to fight,” said Governor Karim, adding that some members of army units based near Kirkuk had contacted local officials, saying they wanted to leave their posts. “They don’t want to kill their own people.” One Sunni soldier, who agreed to speak on the condition that his name not be used, said he paid a bribe to avoid joining his unit in the assault on Hawija. “I paid money to my officer in the army not to send me,” he said. “I have a family and children, and I did not think that the issue is worth dying for.” “It’s our duty to protect Iraq from external enemies, not to take up arms against the people,” he added. The continuing battles on Thursday, which by late afternoon had left nearly 50 people killed, most of them described by security official as militants, came as Western diplomats intensified efforts to convince Mr. Maliki and his government to back away from a military solution to the Sunni uprising. The urgings were met with justifications for the heavy hand, partly out of fears that the situation would otherwise deteriorate into another Syria, according to one Western diplomat and an official close to Mr. Maliki, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. Another diplomat, who also agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, said a fierce disagreement had erupted within the military command between Sunnis who opposed the military response and Shiite officers who directed it. In many areas where clashes have occurred, the fight on the Sunni side is being directed by members of an insurgent group, the Men of the Army of Naqshbandia Order, led by former Baath Party members, which has long operated in Iraq in the shadow of Al Qaeda. The Naqshbandia group has emerged in recent days as a potent fighting force, and has attracted new recruits seeking an outlet for revenge against the government for the killings in Hawija. “We fight for the honor of our families and people,” said Abu Bakr al-Qaisi, a member of the Naqshbandia group in Diyala Province. He said the organization had been receiving reinforcements of men and weapons from local tribes. “It will be shame on us if we stopped to watch our brothers getting killed in Iraq.” The fighting in recent days has evoked painful memories of Iraq’s sectarian war a few years ago, its psychic wounds not yet salved, and some families in Baghdad were even stocking up on food out fear that war could again reach the capital. In Kirkuk, where the bodies of those killed in Hawija were being buried, officials said some of the bodies had wounds, like gunshots to the head, that appeared to have been inflicted at close range. Some, according to Mr. Karim, the Kirkuk governor, also had stab wounds. Mr. Karim said he received a phone call from Osama al-Nujaifi, the speaker of Parliament in Baghdad, who promised to send investigators. Friday, the day when Sunni protests have traditionally been at their most zealous, loomed ominously, and many expected further clashes. “The situation is very grim and I think it will spread,” Governor Karim said. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/world/middleeast/iraqi-premier-urges-calm-but-vows-to-continue-military-strikes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

BIBLE scholars say the Garden of Eden was in southern Iraq, perhaps where the rivers Tigris and Euphrates meet. But when Iraqis think of earthly paradise they tend to look north, towards Kurdistan. It is easy to see why. Over Nowruz, the spring holiday celebrated last month, picnickers flocked to the autonomous region’s flower-speckled meadows and valleys carved by streams flowing down from snow-capped mountains. Nature is not Iraqi Kurdistan’s only draw. The relative order, security and wealth enjoyed by the 5m residents of Iraq’s three Kurdish provinces are the envy of the remaining 25m who live in the battered bulk of Iraq, and of others too. Since 2011 some 130,000 Syrian refugees, nearly all of them ethnic Kurds, have been welcomed in as brothers; the UN says that number could reach 350,000 by the year’s end. From the east come Iranian Kurds eager to work on the building sites that bristle across a territory the size of Switzerland. From the north come plane-loads of Turkish businessmen seeking profit from a land so rich in oil that its sweet, cloying smell hangs everywhere. Iraq is now Turkey’s second export market after Germany, with 70% of that trade directed to the Kurdish part; 4,000 trucks cross the border daily. It was not always like this. Surveying a dusty vista of tents at Domiz, a camp housing more than 50,000 destitute Syrians outside the booming city of Dohuk, an Iraqi Kurd shrugs and says, “Twenty years ago this was us.” He is referring to the aftermath of the Anfal, a campaign in the late 1980s by Iraq’s then-leader Saddam Hussein to crush a Kurdish uprising. It left at least 100,000 dead, destroyed 4,000 villages and created 1m refugees. The imposition of a UN haven allowed Kurdish fighters, thepeshmerga, to claw back control in 1991, but the landlocked autonomous region remained surrounded by suspicious powers. Iran, Syria and Turkey all feared that Kurdish nationalism would infect their own minorities. There was trouble within, too. Politics amplified a linguistic divide between Iraqi Kurdistan’s east and west, sparking a fratricidal war from 1994 to 1997. Tensions from that time linger, along with complaints of greed and nepotism in the two ruling parties that dominate the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Iraqi Kurds also yearn to see their de facto independence formalised. To Kurdish eyes this would mean keeping control of land that technically lies outside the three provinces recognised throughout Iraq as Kurdish, and in particular the multi-ethnic but historically Kurdish-tinted city of Kirkuk. Yet most Kurds accept that patience has paid off, so far. Iraq’s American protectors have kept other foreign powers at bay. The KRG receives 17% of the Iraqi federal budget, now a hefty sum thanks to Iraq’s growing oil exports (though the Kurds’ share comes after a 30% deduction for “sovereign” Iraqi expenses). Since the American-led invasion in 2003 Iraqi Kurds have rebuilt villages, raised GDP per person tenfold, maintained law and order and turned the peshmerga into a formidable army. Daily blackouts may plague Baghdad, but the KRG exports surplus power to adjacent Iraqi towns. Divided at home, the Kurds have united to deal successfully with the federal government, securing good terms in the 2005 constitution and high office in the capital. Oily borders Kurdish officials will not speak of independence yet. But several factors point towards a reckoning. One of these is the dismal state of the rest of Iraq. Battered by al-Qaeda bombings and worried by the likely fall of Syria’s pro-Shia government, a growing number of Iraqi Shias whisper that they should let the Kurds go, better to control what remains. Meanwhile Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq’s increasingly dictatorial prime minister, has grown more confrontational towards the Kurds. In December he sent troops to Kirkuk, prompting the KRG to mobilise the peshmerga. In March, over Kurdish objections, the federal parliament passed a $118-billion budget that allotted just $650m to pay what the KRG claims is a $3.5 billion debt it owes foreign oil companies. The angry Kurds withdrew their federal ministers and MPs. They now have no official representation in Baghdad; Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s Kurdish president, whose easy-going charm has often soothed troubles, has been ill in Germany since December. Whatever the current desires of politicians, oil finds may redraw Iraq’s borders. The Kurds say Iraq’s constitution frees autonomous regions to develop new fields, and have attracted big foreign firms with production-sharing deals that let them book reserves as assets. Baghdad says these are illegal; oil is the property of the people and all revenues must go to the central state. It is annoyed, too, that some of the 50-odd deals signed by the KRG fall in disputed territory. So long as most of Iraq’s oil output came from the south, and so long as it controlled export pipelines, Baghdad held the upper hand. But Kurdistan turns out to have a lot of oil. Proven reserves are now put at 45 billion barrels, a third or less of Iraq’s total, but still nearly double America’s. Kurdish production capacity is rising fast. It should reach 1m barrels a day by 2015 and possibly 2m by 2020, says an executive at Genel, a British-Turkish firm that is Kurdistan’s biggest operator. Squabbles with Baghdad have led to repeated shutdowns of the main pipeline to Turkey, but growing volumes go by tanker truck, solidifying a budding Kurdish-Turkish alliance that would have shocked both peoples only a few years ago. The KRG expects a pipeline to Turkey to be complete by September. Turkey, meanwhile, is keen to diversify away from reliance on Iran and Russia. It helps, too, that many of Turkey’s energy firms are politically close to the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, which has, not coincidentally, lately made headway in securing peace with Turkey’s own Kurds. Officials in Ankara, the Turkish capital, hint that a deal is in the works, covering exploration, production and transport of both oil and natural gas. This prospect alarms the government in Baghdad, and not only because Mr Maliki tends to see Turkey through sectarian lenses as a meddling Sunni behemoth. If Kurdistan secures independent oil wealth, other parts of Iraq could follow. This is a fear shared, oddly enough, by Iraq’s two biggest allies, Iran and the United States. The Americans have repeatedly moved to curb Kurdish ambitions while encouraging Baghdad to accommodate them. But the prize for both Kurds and Turks is starting to look too big for Iraq’s future to be settled with yet fuzzier compromises. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21576394-despite-assertions-contrary-iraqs-kurds-are-inching-towards-outright

By now it’s obvious that “spring” is the wrong description of the political turmoil and civil war that have followed the Arab revolutions of 2011. But for one nation in the Middle East, it’s beginning to look like freedom and prosperity just might be blooming. “People are beginning to talk about the Kurdish Spring, not the Arab Spring,” says a grinning Fuad Hussein, a senior official in the government of Iraqi Kurdistan. Hussein and a delegation from the Kurdistan Region Government, which controls a strip of northern Iraq slightly larger than Maryland, were in Washington last week to talk about where their country stands a decade after the U.S. invasion. From Irbil, Kurdistan’s capital, the war looks like an extraordinary success. Kurdistan is a democracy, though an imperfect one; the territory is peaceful and the economy is booming at the rate of 11 percent a year. Foreign investors are pouring though gleaming new airports to invest, especially in Kurdish-controlled oil fields. Exxon, Chevron, Gazprom and Total are among the multinationals to sign deals with the regional government. A new pipeline from Kurdistan to Turkey could allow exports to soar to 1 million barrels a day within a couple of years. There was one university for the region’s 5.2 million people a decade ago; now there are 30. “Our people,” says Hussein, the chief of staff to President Massoud Barzani, “did quite good.” The bigger story is that Kurds, a non-Arab nation of some 30 million deprived of a state and divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, are on the verge of transcending their long, benighted history as the region’s perpetual victims and pawns. Twenty-five years ago, Kurds were being slaughtered with chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein and persecuted by Turkey, where nearly half live. A vicious guerrilla war raged between Kurdish insurgents and the Turkish army. Now Turkey is emerging as the Kurds’ closest ally and the potential enabler of a string of adjacent, self-governing Kurdish communities stretching from Syria to the Iraq-Iran border. Having built close ties with the Iraqi Kurdish government, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is nownegotiating a peace deal with the insurgent Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) — a pact that could mean new language and cultural rights, as well as elected local governments, for the Kurdish-populated areas of southeastern Turkey. Meanwhile, Barzani and the Iraqi Kurds have been trying to foster a Kurdish self-government for northern Syria, where some 2.5 million Kurds live. Syrian government forces withdrew from the area last year, giving the Kurds the chance to set up their own administration. Until recently, the principal Syrian Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), was supporting the PKK’s fight against Turkey and leaning toward the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Now, thanks to the nascent peace deal, it may be switching sides: Earlier this month its fighters joined with Syrian rebels to drive government forces out of a Kurdish-populated district of Aleppo. Middle Eastern geo-politics, which for so long worked against the Kurds, is now working for them. The sectarian fragmentation of Syria and Iraq has created new space for a nation that is mostly Sunni Muslim, but moderate and secular. Suddenly the Kurds are being courted by all sides. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this month sent a delegation to Irbil to propose that the Kurds return the parliament deputies and ministers they withdrew from the national government last year. Barzani’s government declined but agreed to send a delegation to Baghdad for negotiations. As Hussein portrays it, the talks may be a last chance to avert a breakup of Iraq into separate Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish areas — a split he blames on Maliki’s attempt to concentrate Shiite power. “Either we are going to have a real partnership, or we are going to go back to our own people,” he said, adding that the result could be a referendum on Kurdistan’s future. It would make sense for the United States to join Turkey in backing this Kurdish renaissance; the Kurds are a moderate and pro-Western force in an increasingly volatile region. Yet the Obama administration has consistently been at odds with the Iraqi Kurdish government. It has lobbied Turkey not to allow the new oil pipeline that would give Kurdistan economic independence from Baghdad, and, in the Kurds’ view, repeatedly backed Maliki’s attempts to impose his authority on the region. “The administration sees us not as a stabilizing force, but as an irritant, as an alien presence in the region that complicates matters, another Israel,” one of the visiting Kurds told me. That, like so much of the administration’s policy in the Middle East these days, is wrongheaded. http://www.krg.org/a/d.aspx?l=12&a=47247

Statement by KRG on Iraq and the manipulation of the EITI process Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq (KRG.org) - In 2008, the then federal Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, committed Iraq to achieving compliance with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which aims to help citizens in oil producing countries across the world to follow the flows of oil and money. The EITI is an important globally developed standard that promotes the transparency of oil and mining revenues at the local level. It is a coalition of governments, companies, civil society groups, investors and international organisations. Its rules establish the methodology countries need to follow to become fully compliant with the EITI. Commitment to the goals and principles of EITI is enshrined in the Kurdistan Region’s Oil & Gas Law of 2007. The first annual EITI report on Iraq was produced in 2011, covering revenues for 2009. However it disregarded production and export revenues generated in the Kurdistan Region, including oil exported via the state-owned oil marketing outfit, Somo. The KRG then initiated dialogue with the World Bank and requested to be part of the Iraq-EITI reporting process. Thus, under the auspices of the World Bank and the international EITI secretariat, the KRG agreed to work with the Iraq-EITI branch to produce a report covering revenues for 2010 that reflected the legal, fiscal and structural realities of the oil, gas and mining sectors in Iraq. It was agreed with EITI by all parties (including representatives of the federal Ministry of Oil and Somo) that a separate chapter on the KRG would be included in the main Iraq report. The reporting team led by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the KRG Office for Government Integrity became fully engaged, and despite the lack of EITI guidance or training - and working under severe time constraints - it produced a comprehensive chapter covering the activities of the Kurdistan oil and gas sector in 2010. It was the first time such a report had been produced. The KRG’s contribution to this transparency process was vital to the EITI Board’s designation of Iraq as EITI Compliant on 12 December 2012. Eddie Rich, EITI’s deputy head and regional director of Southern and Eastern Africa and Middle East, wrote to the KRG praising its contribution to the 2010 report. “The commitment of the KRG to publish and participate was very important in this decision. You too are to be congratulated. I hope the 2010 report will give the fuller picture.” In its decision, the EITI Board, comprising members from governments, companies and civil society, reminded Iraq-EITI that: “In accordance with the EITI Rules, Iraq is required to include all material revenue payments in their EITI reporting… To this end, the Board requires the inclusion of oil and gas production in the Kurdistan Region and sales revenue to the Kurdish Regional Government to be addressed in the 2010 EITI report.” In addition, the KRG made a strong but unsuccessful recommendation for the report to include details of Iraq’s domestic refining and fuel consumption. However, at the launch of the report in Baghdad yesterday, to which neither the KRG nor the senior supervising World Bank official was invited, the Iraq-EITI council presented a document from which the chapter on the Kurdistan Region had been unilaterally removed. The report was launched in the presence of EITI Chair Clare Short, the former UK Minister for International Development. The KRG believes this underhand tactic has set back the cause of transparency for the Iraqi people. It has also damaged the reputation of EITI for not ensuring impartiality in the revenue reporting process. Regrettably, it appears that a process supposed to promote transparency has been lost in the fog of political manipulation by some officials in Baghdad. The KRG remains committed to the goals and principles of EITI and, in the cause of full transparency, has decided to publish the deleted chapter on its website. The KRG believes the issues surrounding transparency in Iraq’s petroleum and mining sector are too important to be left in the hands of politically motivated individuals. Therefore, to ensure no such repetition of this unfortunate incident occurs, to cover the year 2011, the KRG will seek to engage a reputable third-party organisation to engage with stakeholders in Kurdistan Region and oversee the production of a full and uncensored KRG oil and gas transparency report that will bear scrutiny under the guiding principles of EITI. http://www.krg.org/a/d.aspx?l=12&a=47129 Older April article on the KRG website. They are a much more organized entity than Baghdad.

http://cbi.iq/documents/CBI_FOREIGN_EXCHANGE_AUCTIONS.pdf Link for actual data from CBI website on exchange auction rates. Scroll to the very end for the 2013 data.

Iraq’s Kurdish region could export 250,000 barrels of oil a day this year and is “on track” with discoveries to ship 1 million barrels a day by 2015 and 2 million by 2019, its natural resources minister said. The semi-autonomous Kurds aren’t seeking independence from the rest of the country, Ashti Hawrami said in a statement posted today on the Kurdistan Regional Government’s website. Even so, Iraq’s political cohesion depends on the Kurds’ ability to produce and sell oil on their own terms, he said. “We wish to remain part of a democratic and federal Iraq, but given the country’s troubled history of authoritarian rule, we believe a decentralized oil policy and the sharing of power and wealth is essential to Iraq’s unity,” Hawrami said. Iraqi Kurds are sparring with the central government inBaghdad over the sharing of revenue from crude sales, investments in Kurdish oil fields by foreign companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., and territorial claims. Hawrami’s comments came amid increasing speculation that the KRG may be preparing to build its own pipeline network to export oil and natural gas to neighboring Turkey, as a step toward economic self- sufficiency and, possibly, political independence. The Kurds halted exports through the government-operated pipeline in December, due to a payments dispute, and have been trucking crude into Turkey instead. Turkey, which relies on energy imports, told Iraq’s government that it’s ready to build pipelines to transport oil from the landlocked Kurdish enclave once the Baghdad-run network reaches full capacity, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told reporters April 10 in Ankara. Kurds ‘Entitled’“The KRG is entitled to and can make the oil and gas exports happen and prefers to do this with Baghdad,” Hawrami said. “But sadly, those in charge there refuse to honor agreements.” Turkey is bound by a 15-year accord with Iraq’s central government on all oil-related business and any separate Turkish agreement with the KRG would “endanger” Turkey’s interests in Iraq, Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul Kareem al-Luaibi said in an April 1 interview. Differences over the conflict in Syria have strained relations between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Iraqi counterpart Nouri al-Maliki. Iraq has the world’s fifth-largest crude reserves, according to data from BP Plc (BP/), and it revised its estimate upward last week by almost 5 percent to 150 billion barrels. The nation’s Kurdish region holds an additional 45 billion barrels, according to the KRG. Iraq produced 3.2 million barrels a day in March, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Northern ExportsThe country exported 2.43 million barrels a day last month, according to the International Energy Agency. Of Iraq’s total shipments, 330,000 barrels a day flowed from the northern oil hub of Kirkuk and into Turkey through the pipeline controlled by the central government, the IEA said in its monthly report published on April 11. “By 2019, over 3 million barrels a day of oil could flow through Iraq’s northern energy corridor to Turkey and the international market,” Hawrami said. “Export infrastructure must be built, but this requires tackling bottlenecks through additional feeder and export pipelines.” Genel Energy Plc (GENL), the largest producer in Iraq’s Kurdish region, announced a discovery on April 10 at the Chia Surkh site. The first of five wells at the field flowed 11,950 barrels of oil a day and 15 million cubic feet of gas, the company said in a statement. Chia Surkh may hold more than 300 million barrels of oil equivalent, former BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, who runs Genel, said in a phone interview. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-15/iraq-s-unity-hinges-on-flexibility-over-kurd-oil-hawrami-says.html

After more than $1 trillion spent and a decade of war and occupation, the U.S. has lost almost total control of Iraq. The Shiite-ruled nation has drifted away from American influence, choosing instead to build relations with its neighbor Iran. Who would have guessed? When the U.S. invaded and tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein, there were few that expected Iraq to turn away from its liberators, and join with radical Iran. Even the Iraqi people celebrated on the streets at first. There was, however, one man predicting a very different outcome. In the 2003 edition of the Trumpet magazine, editor in chief Gerald Flurry published an article boldly stating: Now that Iraq has been taken out of the picture, Iran is even closer to becoming the reigning king of the Middle East. It may seem shocking, given the U.S. presence in the region right now, but prophecy indicates that, in pursuit of its goal, Iran will probably TAKE OVER IRAQ. At least, it will have aheavy influence over the Iraqi people This powerful article,”Is Iraq About to Fall to Iran?”, carried the same headline as an article written on the same subject back in the Trumpet of December 1994. Who else was making such statements so early in the conflict? Now the mainstream media is coming to accept that the U.S. mission has failed. AsErnesto Londoro from the Washington Post said, “Today, America’s voice has been reduced to a whimper.” There are still some who would cling to the belief that Iraq is not a failure. Mr. Londoro wrote, “In some ways, two senior U.S. officials said, having a smaller mission in Baghdad, with no U.S. troops, has set the tone for a healthier relationship. They noted, for instance, that once American troops withdrew at the end of 2011, Shiite militias stopped lobbing rockets at the embassy.” Read that again. American leaders call Iraq a success because the enemy stopped firing when U.S. troops left. Perhaps their enemies stopped firing because they won? The American troops withdrew. That is what the terrorists wanted, and that is what they got. The shrinking embassy is a reflection of waning U.S. influence in the nation. Only one year ago, there were 16,000 workers at the embassy. According to U.S. Ambassador Robert Stephen Beecroft, today there are 10,500 workers, and by the end of the year that figure is set to be 5,500. Only 1,000 of those will be diplomats; the rest will be security personnel and outside contractors. The heavily fortified complex is the largest American mission in the world. It is the size of the Vatican, and opened to the tune of $730 million. Today, it has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. “This is a sign the Americans have given up their promises to support Iraqis. The U.S. Embassy has failed to play the role of being a fair mediator among Iraqi political blocs,” said Ibrahim Hussein, a Sunni engineer from Baghdad. He is just one of many Sunnis living in Iraq who have become disenchanted with U.S. operations in the nation. As U.S. influence evaporates, so does the influence of the Sunni population. The ruling government in Iraq is primarily Shiite. The U.S.-backed President Nouri al-Maliki originally promised a fair government, but has systematically destroyed his opponents. Mr. Maliki has accused at least two key rivals of terrorism, driving them into exile. Whether the claims are true or not, they leave the Shiite government with little to no viable contenders for power in the country. The Sunni population realizes that they are being marginalized, and they won’t be getting any more help from the U.S. “America could still do a lot if they wanted to. But I think because Obama chose a line that he is taking care of interior matters rather than taking care of outside problems, that made America weak—at least in Iraq,” said Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak. Directly to the east of Iraq is Iran. The heavily Shiite-dominated Iran has had its eyes fixed on Iraq for years. Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq acted as a counterbalance to Iran. However, when the U.S. invaded and removed Saddam Hussein from power, it destroyed the strongest Iranian opposition within the region. Now we see the current Iraqi administration taking on more and more of an Iranian appearance. The Sunni population can see this clearer than most. The Shiite government is manipulating the political landscape to ensure the Sunnis can’t rise up against the current administration. It sees the conflict in Syria, and undoubtedly fears it may spill over the border. Iraq is doing its part to try to prevent the Syrian government from being ousted. Iranian planes regularly fly weapons across to Syria, straight through Iraqi airspace. This couldn’t happen when the U.S. controlled the nation’s airspace. Stratfor states that “it is an open secret that Iran has been funneling weapons and fighters in civilian aircraftprimarily through Iraq to reinforce the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.” As violence in Syria rages, Iraq seeks to stay close to Iran and the Syrian government to try to contain a Sunni uprising in its own country. At this crucial juncture in the Middle Eastern political climate, the U.S. is high-tailing it out of there as fast as possible. Failure upon failure has made America weary of conflict. The easiest option now is to just pack up and leave, even after investing $1.7 trillion. The police training program typifies this mindset of retreat. In May 2012, the New York Times posted an article explaining the downfall of the program. Even while it was still operating, it was seen as a failure: The training effort, which began in October and has already cost $500 million, was conceived of as the largest component of a mission billed as the most ambitious American aid effort since the Marshall Plan. Instead, it has emerged as the latest high-profile example of the waning American influence here following the military withdrawal, and it reflects a costly miscalculation on the part of American officials, who did not count on the Iraqi government to assert its sovereignty so aggressively. America cannot afford to keep making these blunders in the Middle East. It is playing right into Iran’s hands. In the New York Times recently, Ramzy Mardini of the Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies assessed the situation bluntly: “A decade since the occupation of Iraq began,Baghdad still cannot be considered an ally of the United States. … An alliance today is beyond anyone’s reach.” Why is it so hard for the U.S. to maintain its presence in the region? Prophecy indicates Iraq will join forces with Iran. As hard America has tried to create an ally in Iraq, it is destined to fail. Likewise, no matter how hard Iran and Iraq try to aid Syria, the embattled nation is destined to turn against them. Washington doesn’t know this, and neither do any of the nations in the Middle East. You can. You personally have the opportunity to understand why world events are shaping up as they are right now. Study “Is Iraq About to Fall to Iran?” by Gerald Flurry and see for yourself how the puzzle pieces are falling into place in the Middle East as God prophesied, and as theTrumpet continues to proclaim. ▪ http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10533.19.0.0/religion/islam/us-influence-in-iraq-continues-to-diminish

Former President George W. Bush reflected on his tenure in the White House during an interview with the Dallas Morning News published Sunday, saying that he was comfortable with his decision-making regarding the Iraq War. "I'm confident the decisions were made the right way," Bush explained. "It's easy to forget what life was like when the decision was made." Bush's rare interview comes as he prepares to attend a ceremony for the opening of his presidential library next week in Dallas. He'll be there along with President Barack Obama and every other living former president. Speaking to the Morning News of the legacy that the library is meant to honor, Bush suggested he had few regrets. "I'm comfortable with what I did," he said. "I'm comfortable with who I am." Read the rest at the Morning News (subscription required). The former president's comments come just weeks after an emotional observance of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Bush, former Vice President **** Cheney and other members of the administration who played integral parts in the warreceived heavy criticism over that period. Tomas Young, an Iraq veteran paralyzed during his service, became one of the most powerful voices of the protest when he penned an open letter to Bush and Cheney, blasting them for their "cowardice." (Read Young's entire letter here.) A recent Harvard study attempted to put the human cost of Bush's wars in context, explaining that the expense of covering residual health issues for young soldiers injured in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, will continue to weigh on the system long after the official end of those engagements. According to the paper, the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan together could end up running somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/george-w-bush-iraq_n_3084187.html

The Kurdistan region of Iraq, Bina Bawi, has attracted an Austrian Oil company, OMV, which is also partly owned by the Abu Dhabi government, holding 24.9% stake. This company is already pumping gas in this region and it has set its eyes to further widen their business operating to pumping oil as well. OMV sights this region as a potential for vast growth and development. The Company announced yesterday that the drilling for oil is already underway and it has hopes for pumping up to 5000 barrels per day. This figure is expected to rise to up to 10000 barrels per day upon the completion of the other two oil wells that are going under construction. Nonetheless; the easy promise of gallons of Oil is weakened by the dispute between the Kurd and the central government that refuses to grant Kurdistan independent exploitation of the region oil wells. As a result, Baghdad has taken some drastic measures as far as withholding sums of money that was owed to international companies. The central government has put Erbil in its blacklist and any operation by this Kurd Company is termed illegal. Despite the dangers that are clearly sighted, other oil companies like Total, ExxonMobil and Chevron have signed deals with the Kurds and it may be a big loss to them if they are to be expelled. The strict policy laid down by the Central government has brought little or nothing to the companies that have invested in this rich oil region. The Kurdistan Regional Government is now in talks with the Turkish government concerning the possible investment of the Turks to pump oil and gas. The Kurds hope to be able to export independently to safeguard their position of producers in that region. http://me-confidential.com/6964-kurdistan-omv-expanding-its-operations.html

Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said Thursday (April 11th) that 174 international observers have arrived in the country to oversee balloting in the April 20th provincial elections. The international observers represent organisations belonging to the United Nations, the European Union, and various countries, IHEC spokeswoman Gulshan Kamal told Mawtani. "There are 23,000 local observers overseeing the elections, spread across Iraqi cities," she said. "They will be watching from the first moment balloting centres open until the end." Additional international observers may also arrive in coming days, she said. "The presence of international observers will give the Iraqi elections further transparency and compliance with international standards," Kamal said. Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq told Mawtani the presence of international observers "gives Iraqi voters considerable trust and optimism in the elections". "The government provided comfortable and secure vehicles to transport observers between cities, villages and the countryside, and [means to] record their remarks on the balloting process," he said. "Iraq will accept any criticism from the observers, because this will lead to improving the electoral process, upon which the political system in the new Iraq is based," al-Mutlaq said. "The government gave permits to about 14 Iraqi, Arab and foreign journalists from various agencies to report from balloting centres and freely cover the proceedings of the democratic process," he added. PLAN TO PREVENT TERRORISMInterior ministry undersecretary Adnan al-Assadi said Iraqi security forces drafted a plan for election day to prevent "any terrorist assault that might be launched by al-Qaeda". These measures will not "prevent or limit the movement of local and international journalists and observers", he added. Meqdad al-Sharifi, head of the IHEC's electoral department, said the role of local and international observers inside balloting centres is crucial. "Iraq cannot forget the role the UN played in helping election staff during the phase of mobilisation and preparation for the election, including the assistance they provided in bringing international observers to Iraq," he told Mawtani. These observers will provide "major assistance to [the IHEC], and Iraqis in general, in making the electoral process more transparent and honest", he said. The IHEC "provided free telephone hotlines [so Iraqis can] report on any election breach or violation of international standards adopted by the commission", he said, adding that any such reports will be addressed "with the utmost speed". http://mawtani.al-shorfa.com/en_GB/articles/iii/features/2013/04/15/feature-01