Iraqi Kurds ready to share revenue from oilfields

London: Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government said it stands ready to share revenue from its oilfields with the rest of the country, but wants the final word on how and with which partners they should be developed.

Ashti Hawrami, Minister of Natural Resources in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), added on Wednesday the KRG aims to enact its own petroleum law in the coming weeks and secure new oil deals with foreign companies during October.

"We have no intention of withholding revenue from the central government," Hawrami said at a briefing for potential investors in London.

"We will not take a dollar extra than our fair share, but we expect our fair share."

Concerns about how Iraq's oil resources the world's third biggest will be shared has been a source of discontent among Sunni Arabs, who fear autonomous deals by Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south will cut them off from Iraq's oil wealth.

But Hawrami said this should not be a concern as oil reserves in the Sunni region were roughly equal to those of the historically Kurdish areas.

However, most of the Kurdish reserves are in areas currently outside KRG control, such as the Kirkuk oilfields that pumped some 800,000 barrels per day before the US-led war in 2003.

A December 2007 referendum will determine whether Kirkuk city and the surrounding area should come under KRG control. Arabs in the area accuse Kurds of driving them out in advance of the referendum but a Kurdish official denied this.

Hawrami said the KRG was prepared to cooperate with Baghdad on the management of existing, already-producing fields, but the KRG had sole power over its new oilfields.

"Control of the new fields is the exclusive right of the regions and we are not going to budge on that. We will control them 100 per cent," said Hawrami.