Iraqi PM Abadi says holding independence referendum in Kurdistan is ‘illegal’

Iraqi PM Abadi says holding independence referendum in Kurdistan is ‘illegal’

Posted on June 19, 2017

BAGHDAD,— Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said holding an independence referendum in the Kurdistan Region is “illegal” and that such a referendum requires a specified law for it in parliament.

Abadi told reporters and academics on Saturday night that such a referendum requires a law to be created and adopted inside the Iraqi Parliament because the Iraqi constitution does not currently allow for the Kurdistan Region or other provinces to split from Iraq.

“That process is not that easy and it will affect the stability of the region. It is also illegal” Abadi added.

The Kurdistan Region’s political parties, not including the Change Movement (Gorran) and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG), came to an agreement on June 7 to hold a referendum on the region’s independence this year on September 25.

The decision by the Kurdistan Region’s authorities has concerned the United States, UK, Russia, Germany, Turkey and Iran.

Regarding oil exports from the Kurdistan Region to international markets, Abadi said the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) exports 550,000 to 650,000 barrels of oil per day, which is around 20 percent of Iraqi oil crude exports.

Abadi also criticized the KRG for seizing Kirkuk’s oil by force after the Islamic State (ISIS) captured large swathes of Iraq, adding that the region exports two thirds of Kirkuk’s oil now.

The KRG exports its oil through Turkey’s Ceyhan Port and has not reached any agreement on this issue, Abadi told reporters and academics, which consequently pushed Iraq into halting the Kurdistan Region’s share from the federal budget in the middle of 2015.

Abadi also said that the KRG’s oil exports create instability for an OPEC agreement to reduce outputs to settle the price of oil, which was decreased to under $30 a barrel.

“The KRG is not able to administrate its finances properly because of political administration and lack of an agreement on the distribution of revenues and expenses,” Abadi added.

Tensions between the KRG and the central government hit a high in 2015 after officials from both sides accused each other of failing to abide by the terms of an oil revenue sharing deal struck by officials in December 2014.

Officials from Baghdad and Erbil signed a revenue sharing deal, under which the KRG would receive 17 percent of the federal budget in exchange for exporting 550,000 barrels of oil per day to the Iraqi State Organization for Marketing Oil (SOMO) at Ceyhan Port in Turkey.

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