TheKurdish Regional Governmentin Erbil is honoring the agreement it made with the central Iraqi government in Baghdad over oil deliveries, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) spokesman Sefin Dizayi said Monday.
Rejecting claims that Erbil stopped sending oil, Dizayi said "we have continued sending oil to SOMO, Iraq'soil marketing company, despite the fact that Baghdad has failed to send our full share from the national budget."
Chairman of the oil and energycommission of the Iraqi parliament, AresAbdullah, claimed that the KRG has lowered the amount of oil itsent to SOMO since the beginning of June.
"Baghdad has not provided the KRG's full share from the national budget. That's why Erbil has reason not to deliver the agreed amount of oil to SOMO," Abdullah said.
The spokesman for the Iraqi ministry of petroleum, Asim Cihat, stated that there are no disagreements between Baghdad and Erbil."The falling amount of oil exports is due to technical reasons and other factors," he said, but did not elaborate more.
Erbil andBaghdad reached an agreement on Dec. 2, 2014 on the exportation of the KRG oil in exchange for a share of the budget from the central government.
According to the agreement, theKRG was to export 250,000 barrels of oil per daywith theKirkukprovince providing300,000 barrels per dayunder the supervision of the central government’s oil marketing company, SOMO.In return, Baghdadwasto provide 17 percent of thenational budget to the KRG.
There have been numerous disputes between Erbil and Baghdad due to the amount of crude oil being exported.While Erbil accuses the central government of failing to provide its full share from the national budget, Baghdad claims the KRG has not delivered the promised amount of crude oil from Kirkuk.
(Anadolu Agency)
