KRG Deputy PM: Turkish Military Operations Would Destabilize N Iraq
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Turkish cross-border operations into north Iraq would destabilize the region and exacerbate armed attacks by Kurdish rebels, Kurdish Regional Government Deputy Prime Minister Omar Fatah said Monday.
Fatah, speaking through interpretation by a KRG representative, said instead, diplomatic channels could resolve escalating tensions by armed Kurdish rebels and the Turkish government, which has prepared for military operations into northern Iraq.
The Turkish parliament has approved a resolution that would allow a military operation into northern Iraq in a bid to counter the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party that has intensified attacks on Turkish troops on the border.
"Military intervention in Iraq by any of its neighbors will not solve any problems; it will exacerbate them," Fatah said at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Earlier this month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had been in contact with Syria and Iran about cooperation to combat PKK attacks.
The Kurdish region of Iraq has not suffered the same volume of terrorist attacks as many other parts of Iraq, Fatah said. "To destabilize this secure region will have profound consequences on the stability of Iraq," he said, adding: "It will also be problematic for Turkey, because the instability will be on Turkey's border."
"We're still hopeful that Turkey will not launch a cross-border operation," Fatah said.
Besides other cross-border trade, Iraq exports oil through Turkey in the 1.6 million-barrel-a-day Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline.
The deputy prime minister said the KRG won't offer logistical support to the PKK, won't allow PKK-affiliated political party activity, "and we will assure that the PKK has no safe passage through our region."
Although Fatah said the KRG wanted "to move away from the tried and tested and failed centralized systems of government," he also said his regional government was committed to building a unified Iraq. "I want to reaffirm that we seek a democratic and federal Iraq ... and we do not have plans to secede from Iraq."
Separately, the deputy prime minister said he was disappointed that major international oil companies had shied away from signing contracts on potentially lucrative petroleum prospects in the region, and said they were being overly cautious. Oil industry analysts and officials have said that while smaller oil companies are willing to risk the possibility that a new central-government hydrocarbon law may void KRG-signed contracts, larger companies fear spoiling an opportunity to participate in larger prospects through the rest of Iraq by offending the central government in Baghdad.
Completion of complex new hydrocarbon laws are seen as essential to the reconstruction of Iraq as a nation - Iraq has some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world - but strong disagreement between political and ethnic factions on revenue sharing and contract authority has slowed progress.
Fatah reiterated contracts that smaller international oil companies have signed with the KRG are in line with Iraq's constitution. The central government disputes that some of the new contracts signed with the KRG are legal.
"I'd like to extend an invitation to all of them to help develop the oil resources in Kurdistan," Fatah said, adding: "They will make a profit if they come."
Companies such as ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX) and CononcoPhillips (COP) have said that, currently, the country is too much of a security and legal quagmire for them to invest.
Many smaller companies, such as Norway's Det Norske Oljeselskap (DNO.OS) and Houston-based Calibre Energy (CBRE), have signed deals with the Kurdish Regional Government on large prospects in northern Iraq because of its relative safety.