KRG: Fuel shortage Baghdad’s fault
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) — The top Kurdistan envoy to the United States says the fuel shortage in the relatively safe Iraq region is the fault of Baghdad and could lead to instability.
“It’s huge,” Qubad Talabany, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s representative to the United States, told United Press International. “We’re in winter. People need fuel for heat. Vehicles are parked for hours, days sometimes, to get gas.”
Kurdistan has been semi-autonomous since 1991 and developed and prospered since, even during the past four years of war. It relies on its fuels supplies from the central government, a body that can barely function. Baghdad itself is choked from heating and transportation fuels because of refinery issues, insurgent attacks and oil product smuggling.
This is unacceptable, Talabany said, in a country with as much resources as Iraq. It sits on 115 billion barrels of proven reserves and the Kurds control roughly 40 billion.
It “absolutely” falls on Baghdad’s shoulders, he said. “We are still dependent on fuel and goodwill from Baghdad.”
The central government this week authorized the KRG to purchase oil products from Turkish companies because of Baghdad’s inability to ship fuel north.
Talabany said the longer Kurdistan is deprived of fuel for basic needs, the more it slows development and increases unrest.
“What people are saying is ‘why didn’t we have this problem during Saddam’s days,’” he said. “How can this government in Baghdad … be treating us worse?”