Senior Iraqi Politician Anxious About Mousel

Mousel city. Photo by Sgt. Patrick Lair.

In an interview with Rudaw, Iraqi member of parliament and former head of the parliamentary committee for gas and oil, Nuraddin al-Hiyali criticized the Iraqi oil policies, describing it as “unclear”. Al-Hiyali also said that the Iraqi government has failed in running the country’s oil sector properly.

“It is an unclear policy,” he said. “The Iraqi government has failed to manage the oil sector of Iraq.”

Regarding Kurdistan’s oil contracts, al-Hiyali said that the oil companies benefit from those contracts more than anyone else.

“A big portion of the oil income goes into the pocket of the foreign companies,” said al-Hayali.

Up to now, the Iraqi parliament has not ratified its oil and gas law and al-Hiyali attributes this to huge disputes over the details of the draft law. He admitted that neighboring countries are also a cause for this delay.

“Pressure from the neighboring countries blocks the ratification of this law.” he said.

When the Kurdistan region began signing contracts with foreign oil companies the authorities in Baghdad were furious and at one point Iraq’s then oil minister Hussein Shahristani called the contracts “null and void”. Al-Hiyali believes that those contracts are an outright breech of law.

“Iraq’s Kurdistan Region has violated the Iraqi constitution by signing 40 oil contracts with foreign companies without the agreement of the central Iraqi government,” he said.

Al-Hiyali said that the Kurds interpret the Iraqi constitution the way it suits them. But Kurdish authorities defend their oil deals by arguing that that the constitution entitles them to drill and export oil of their governorates.

In 2005 the Kurdistan Regional Government signed an agreement with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in the presence of the then US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, which stipulates that if the ratification of the Iraqi oil and gas law is delayed, each party is free to choose its own discretion with regard to the oil and gas.

“The KRG is making the foreign oil companies partners of the Iraqi people in their oil wealth"

Al-Hayali also believes that the Iraqi government’s method in dealing with oil and gas is better than that of the Kurds.

“The KRG is making the foreign oil companies partners of the Iraqi people in their oil wealth, and this is against the Iraqi constitution because a big part of the profits goes into the pockets of the foreign companies. This is a waste of the Iraqi wealth.” he said.

Apart from the fate of the country’s natural resources, as a senior politician, al-Hiyali is also concerned about the situation in the Nineveh province in northwestern Iraq. He said the central government isn’t able to solve Mousel, the provincial capital due to dirty politics.

“The situation in Mosul is explosive because of all the violence and the call to divide the city on ethnic and religious basis,” he said. “And because of the KRG’s meddling in the affairs of the city that is a violation of the Iraqi constitution.”

The Kurds in Mousel have refused to participate in the city’s affairs due to deep disagreements between the Arab al-Hadba bloc that won the majority of the votes in the 2009 provincial elections and the Kurdish Brotherhood Bloc. This disagreement al-Hiyali believes, can cripple the province’s economy.

“The brotherhood bloc should take part in the administration of the governorate with the 12 seats they won in the elections and this way the Kurds would be represented,” he said. “It is not in the interest of Mosul to marginalize any ethnicity. Also the current disagreement between al-Hadba and the brotherhood bloc has undermined the size of trade in the city.”

Some of the disputed territories that both the central government and the Kurdish government claim stretch into the Nineveh province. The Kurdish authorities claim the towns of Shekhan, Makhmur, Tilkef, Talafar, Shangar to be historically part of Kurdistan and they try to make it official record. But al-Hiyali disapproves of these efforts. “About the borders of Mosul we disagree with the Kurdish constitutional project that adds five towns from Nineveh the Kurdistan Region and states that they are inseparable parts of Kurdistan.” he said.

Al-Hiyali said that the Kurds cannot draw their border based on ethnic factors. He said that article 53 of the Iraqi constitution clearly defines the border of the Kurdistan region which only includes the three provinces of Duhok, Sulaimani and Erbil.

“The Iraqi constitution does not say the borders of Kurdistan include any region where Kurdish is spoken.” al-Hiyali said.

During the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 Kurdish Peshmarga forces went to Mousel to protect the Kurdish population there. And in 2005 the Americans called in the Peshmarga to reinforce the Iraqi police when it almost lost the city to insurgents. Al-Hiyali demands the withdrawal of all Kurdish forces from the province.

“The Iraqi constitution does not say the borders of Kurdistan include any region where Kurdish is spoken”

“Their presence in Mosul is against the Iraqi constitution, it is not right and we demand their withdrawal,” he said.

Al-Hayali is the author of several books one of which is titled Federalism and its Dangers to Iraq. He says that other areas in Iraq contemplate autonomy for their provinces.

“There are many such demands in Iraq, especially in Anbar, Salahaddin, and Mosul due to the marginalization of these regions [by the government],” he said. “In addition to meddling in their affairs by the central government, these people also feel insulted and discriminated against.”

Al-Hiyali said that autonomy is not the answer to Iraq’s problems.

“These calls for autonomy only worsen the problems of Iraq and they will tear the country to pieces,” he said. “This is not the way to solve our problems.”