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Barzani’s KDP election campaign for the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/ Ekurd.net
Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to Ekurd.net
One week before the Parliamentary elections on 12 May, corruption remains the face of power in Iraq
Protests put down by force last month highlighted the deep socio-economic divide in the Kurdish region. Austerity measures are passed on to the professional work force while the ruling KDP and PUK families and their sidekicks continue to rob the nation.
Corruption is the face of power and therefore of success. “If you aren’t corrupt, no one respects you, a local businessman explained. The sons of the trillionaires have to drive Ferraris while their wives spend their time between the beauty parlour and shopping excursions. When a deal is done, the son in the next room will ask papa afterwards, how much did he have to pay you in the black? Can I have $300,00?
The ‘salary-saving’ system imposing a 60% reduction that has been implemented over the past two years affecting teachers, doctors, the peshmerga and other key members of the work force does not extend to the corrupt trillionaires still skimming the profits of the oil trade whilst declaring a false barrel sales figure. Construction is dead. Miles of unfinished buildings blot the cityscape of the capital, Erbil.
Liquid Gold
According to reliable sources, KRG sells all oil at a discounted figure per barrel and the discount goes directly into the pockets of the ruling families as well as Turkish dictator, President Recep Tayyib Erdogan.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The so-called discount is a lie. It is what they apply in falsified accounts – the real take -home pay for the KDP, PUK, All Parliamentary Group profiteers in the UK and other top players in the KRG is close to $5 million a day.
“These criminals between them split the oil proceeds of the 60,000 bpd that goes to the Dukan refinery. It is generally assumed that the oil moves via Croatia, but it is actually being transported via Trieste in Italy, near Croatia. It is then routed via pipelines to Bavaria via Vitol, Carlyle, Glencore, Rosneft, and via Bazan’s offshore refinery through the likes of multi-millionaire Kurdish MP, Nadhim Zahawi and his UAE, UK, and KRG partners.”
The misleaders at the top of the KDP and PUK have become the biggest Kurdish nation. As they now own everything they enjoy the military and economic power to be able to continue their course without restraint until the revolution comes.
Instead of re-election the ‘kings’ of the KDP and PUK merit prosecution for theft and fraud, seizure of the property of others. The true extent of their criminal activity is startling: enormous land holdings with palaces in Kurdistan and property abroad. The Barzani family own most of Erbil. For example, Sirwan Barzani is the lord of Kurdistan Tower, mall, hotel and business centre as well as Korek, the only mobile company in Erbil.
The oil ministry that was once based in the Kurdistan Parliament now sits imposingly on the new road Gulan conveniently located by Kurdistan Bank (CEO Nechirvan Barzani) and RT Bank (Regional Trade Bank) of which the major share holder is also Nechirvan Barzani, the bank owned by his aunt’s husband, Salar Hakim.
Nechirvan Barzani also owns Salahaddin Holding and the Ster (Star) Group with control of Pepsi and Coca Cola. He owns the Divan Five Star Hotel and his private property in the centre of Erbil has its own private underpass and takes up a fifth of the inner city over some 50 hectares. The palace is entirely walled off from view. The palace and compound was formerly occupied by al-Douri when governor of Kurdistan under Saddam Hussein. It was then seized during the Kurdish uprising by the Kurdish rebel forces and changed hands several times before becoming the private property of Nechirvan Barzani. It is not the residence of the Prime Minister as with No. 10 Downing Street – it is Barzani’s personal property.
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Mr Botox: Nechirvan Barzani campaign billboard for the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
Who owns what? Who owns all?
When in post as PM, Barham Saleh was also provided with a luxury residence, which he has been privileged to keep. It is rumoured to be valued at more than $10 million. Barham was intimate with the CIA and worked closely with Zalmay Khalizad. His reported wealth last time we checked was around $3.2 billion. Barham got approximately $ 1 billion when he agreed with Nechirvan and Hawrami with Erdogan to have pipeline built to Turkey. Barham’s greatest accomplishment is the American Unversity at Sulaimaniyah, that made him some $600,000 when built. Now he is running as head of a new party called the Coalition of Democracy and Justice (CJD), pledging to fight corruption. Most locals laugh: they don’t see change coming anytime soon and they don’t believe their vote will change a thing – it’s too late – corruption is essential to continuity. “Mistaken policies, misreading local and foreign realities, failure to care for the public interest, and holding hands “with the enemies of the nation,” brought Kurdistan to “an unwanted condition,” he explained to KDP’s media organ, Rudaw, introducing his party as a new political, democratic organization…”[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
UK and USA dirty business in Kurdistan and Iraq
“When Iraq was invaded it drove the oil prices up, without even getting to the oil in Iraq, the same again by the US, France, USA bombing Syria over the last 18 months.
“Ashti Hawrami is he is wrapped in the Union Jack: he is protected better than any UK PM or former PM and has done the UK’s dirty work for decades. He is a personal of the Thatcher Family, same with Major, Blair and Cameron, more so with Theresa May and her husband, Philip May. He has more solid hands than most, his part at the capital group runs right through Kurdistan.”
“The UK’s man “Hawrami” with Blair and Bush plan was to take Iraq land and give it to Barzani and Talabani, not the Kurdish people. Based in Jordan, CIA boss, David Manners owns Decapolis. From 2003 he worked with Jamal Daniel and the Levant Foundation (really Decapolis). His pay out came via Barzani, Hawrami, Ross Perot, and was funneled that route but onto Jersey, where Nechirvan Barzani got hold of the cash. Manners was for bringing them all down, but Nechirvan Barzani had to use Barham Salih to try to stop David Manners and Decapolis…
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Barham Salih, Iraqi election campaign, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo credit: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
PUK – Bbottomless pockets
Aza Doğramacı[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], a close to the Talabani family, owns Federal Petroleum. Among the biggest of the criminals in PUK area, he receives 10% of the oil proifts. The PUK/Talabani and KDP/Barzani family get 50%. Bafel Talabani and Ashti Hawrami get 30% and a well-known UK MP of Kurdish origin receives10% through a Dubai company.
Hewa Karamani, a frontman for Bafel Talabani, was “owner” of Tigris Energy that owns the Dukan Refinery where all the oil comes from. WZR (now Crest Investments owned by Jamal Daniel) comes from there. He also has a share in Khalakan PSC. Other oil comes from Kor Mor and goes to Dukan. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]The above is back up for the Italian pipeline. The KRG also send oil to Sardinia that goes to Rosneft’s refinery on Sardinia. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Another of Bafel Talabani’s lynchpins, who fronted deals, is Ahmed Sarchil Qazzaz. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
International legal procedings apace
The FDI Account in the UN used to send the Iraq Ministry of Finance the proceeds minus the 6% due to Kuwait and that money went into the budget.
In 2011, the KRG stopped sending the 110, 000 bopd via the pipeline and trucked it to Turkey with the other 40,000 bopd they were already trucking. Iraq objected and warned the KRG they would be subjected to removal of their share of the budget if they continued to send oil to Turkey.
In 2012, the KDP peshmerga destroyed the NOC Kirkuk pipeline that was sending the oil from Kirkuk to Turkey, and then started their own pipeline that they had been working on since July 2011.
The UN warned the KRG and Turkey that they could not use the pipeline to transit Iraq oil to Turkey and both would be liable to repay Iraq with the Turks bearing the biggest responsibility and the KRG were summoned by the UN to Baghdad over the 6% to Kuwait and where was the missing $ from the oil.
The full legal ramifications are clear that anyone (i.e. KRG) violating that IPT under international law becomes a guilty party as well as those with whom they transit the oil to Turkey.
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Section of exposed oil pipeline on Debaga-Kirkuk road, Erbil Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri
Laizer/Ekurd.net
Iraq listed the IPT violation in the Paris Court of Arbitration in July 2014, after the KRG failed to attend the Iraq Supreme Court three times.
The cost of the oil sent through the pipeline since 2013 has cost Iraq $52 billion, but it also means that the KRG and Turkey are solely responsible for paying 6% of that to Kuwait. The UN motion passed on the violation of the IPT was held against Turkey and the KRG. It named Halkbank as well as Botas and the KRG MNR.
Basically, Rosneft has bought 60% of the KRG pipeline they built with money from XOM, Turkey and the ICG budget. It basically means Rosneft own a part of a KRG oil pipeline, but not according to any legal IPT held by Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, Northern Oil Company. The KRG pipeline transiting oil out of Iraq is still illegal and has been ruled on, so what in reality has Rosneft brought? [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
For any oil to leave Iraq legally by the KRG-Turkey pipeline it would require Baghdad to set up a new IPT with Turkey; it would need the KRG and Turkey to pay 6% of the $52 billion owed to the FDI at the UN and that to be paid on to Kuwait. At the present time Kuwait holds the full legal rights to seize any oil from Turkey/Kurdistan and take it as payment. It can also seize anything else from Turkey and Kurdistan.
Impoverished Peshmerga betrayed
Despite the eye-watering plunder, in February 2018, the US again agreed to pay $360 million for the present year for the peshmerga’s salaries to be paid in monthly instalments to the KRG. The peshmerga are not receiving their salaries.
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Former peshmerga General Salahi from Kirkuk asks– Reward for service- Ruins of an abandoned construction site in Erbil, Deshte Beheshte, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
While talk abounds, joint action is limited, including over the issue of re-deploying the Peshmerga forces to disputed areas, allowing ISIS to regroup in the interim. Rudaw reported the stalemate to be ongoing as of 5 April, Jabar Yawar, the secretary-general of the Peshmerga ministry told reporters” “So far there has been no official meeting between KRG’s Ministry of Peshmerga and Iraq’s Ministry of Defense or between the regional government and the Iraqi federal government on how to deploy the Peshmerga forces alongside the Iraqi federal forces in the disputed territories…”[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]No love is lost between the Kurds and the PMU. In the Kirkuk take-over of 16 October last, some 240 PMU militia members and 67 peshmerga lost their lives. The PMU used US Abrams tanks against the Kurds to the consternation of the Americans that provided the equipment for deployment in the war against IS, not internal dispute.
Thousands of families from Kirkuk that are historically connected with the KDP remain displaced, including in abandoned construction sites like Deshte Beheshte (Field of Paradise) in the new suburb of Kesnazan.
Among the Kirkuki families are former peshmerga General Tariq Mouloud Salahi and his family. Tariq has seen it all – 35 years displaced from home under Saddam. Since 16 October 2017, forced to abandon everything anew and flee with his adult peshmerga son and family, Turkmen have seized their home. Now they find themselves in yet another of the hundreds of abandoned construction sites – Deshte Beheste begun by Turk Kurd singer, Ibrahim Tatlises and partners who have left before completing the project they began in 2009 – now an unfinished ghost town. “You are the first to have come here to ask about us here” he complained.
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One of numerous blocks of stalled construction sites in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
Ghost construction sites
Since Baghdad cut the payments to the KRG, huge construction sites across the Kurdish capital comprising hectares of land allocated to projects for new model villages, high rise apartment complexes, shops and Malls, stand half finished or barely begun. Private buyers that invested in these projects must now go to court to obtain access to the property they purchased as a finished project. They then have to try to finance and finish building it themselves. Going to court will cost money and an take years.
The new Asayish complex – High-cost intimidation completed project
In staggering contrast, the new General Directorate of Security headquarters[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] incorporating the Asayish Security Council and Intelligence Agency (Parastin) is a 60 m2 construction site on the Kirkuk road in front of Naza Mall and near 92 Apartments, costing some $88.6 million.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Turkish Kürk Construction (Kürk İnşaati Irak (Erbil) established in Mersin in 1981, with offices registered in Mersin and Erbil, is the construction company.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Model for the New Security Headquarters – General Directorate of Security, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan – the realtynow built is far more grim, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
The on-site short term jail – or detention facility – processes political and other detainees, such as foreigners recruited to fight for the YPG and ISIS prisoners.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] If charged they are moved on to the outer Erbil prison facility near the bland new Kasnazan neighbourhood where in 2014 an arms market thrived from the sale of private weapons for protection in case ISIS rolled in.
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Whilst the complex is vast and the interiors luxurious, acacording to visting officials, the detainees are kept in a very confined space on the excuse that it is a short-term detention facility.
The grey complex sends an intimidating message about who is firmly in control. Dominating the landscape, partially blocked from street view by bomb blast walls, its logo is a watching eye, reproduced at regular intervals.
Another cost of war: the misery of 1.5 million refugees and IDPs in KRI
Not all IDPs and refugees are registered: if they don’t require support and shelter they can merge with friends and families in cramped conditions.
For the others, conditions remain rudimentary to say the least. Vast camps sprawl across open barren tracts of stony land, rough stuctures and basic tents as far as the eye can see as with Khazir M1 camp on the Mosul road, home to some 9000 IDPs and the three Debaga camps on the Dibis-Kirkuk road with similar capacity. There are ten camps in Erbil alone host to 40, 535 individuals and all remain open.
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IDP numbers went up overall after the 16 October 2017 government claw-back of the KRG’s territory liberated from IS and forcible take-over of Kirkuk.
The Shi;a militia (PMU) used prohibited US Abrams tanks and expended millions of bullets to gain the military advantage overt the shocked peshmerga forces. It is illegal to use such weapons against your own people. Peshmerga described the sky being red with the ammunion fired by the PMU against them. Now there is a tense standoff at the Kirkuk checkpoints from the KDP dominated area.
The PUK faces no such problems coming directly from Sulaimaniyah. From Erbil, detours taking time on poorly maintained roads send out a strong message about Abadi’s punishment for the referendum. Under Iraqi law, the referendum was entirely legal.
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Iraqi Prime Minister al-Abadi’s office in Erbil, Kurdistan region in last days before the vote, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
Same old faces – elections 2018
Iraq’s streets, public spaces, traffic lights, are hung with the posters and flags of the competing parties and candidates ranked in order of importance, hundreds only standing to reap neighbourhood votes that will contribute to the central pot of the party.
There are no campaign pictures of al-Maliki in the KRG where he is despised for having wrought massive destruction to Iraq.
Iraq-wide corruption
The Kurdish misleaders are not alone in boastful corruption. When in office as PM, Nouri al-Maliki diverted cash to Tehran. Other cash sums were diverted to UAE, Turkey, European countries and the US. $360 billion went missing from state funds under Maliki’s eight-year tenure according to a spokesman for the Iraqi Commission of Integrity.
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As for al-Abadi, the Kurds consider him too weak to be able to reel in the PMU and hold Iraq together. Not hated like al-Maliki, he is not seen as a doorway to future stability.
One commentator observed: “Abadi was never elected as PM: he was placed in that position by the UK and when all is said and done, he is a mere lift operator – an engineer: Can you imagine having a lift operator taking control of Iraq? Well that is where the UK put him and that will be hard to change. “
On the Kurdish street, little confidence is expressed in the same old faces. A hung parliament is expected with the Hashd al-Shaaabi candidates who stepped down from their militia command potentially able to secure enough seats to legally impose Tehran’s presence.
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Barzani’s KDP election campaign for the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/ Ekurd.net
Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to Ekurd.net
One week before the Parliamentary elections on 12 May, corruption remains the face of power in Iraq
Protests put down by force last month highlighted the deep socio-economic divide in the Kurdish region. Austerity measures are passed on to the professional work force while the ruling KDP and PUK families and their sidekicks continue to rob the nation.
Corruption is the face of power and therefore of success. “If you aren’t corrupt, no one respects you, a local businessman explained. The sons of the trillionaires have to drive Ferraris while their wives spend their time between the beauty parlour and shopping excursions. When a deal is done, the son in the next room will ask papa afterwards, how much did he have to pay you in the black? Can I have $300,00?
The ‘salary-saving’ system imposing a 60% reduction that has been implemented over the past two years affecting teachers, doctors, the peshmerga and other key members of the work force does not extend to the corrupt trillionaires still skimming the profits of the oil trade whilst declaring a false barrel sales figure. Construction is dead. Miles of unfinished buildings blot the cityscape of the capital, Erbil.
Liquid Gold
According to reliable sources, KRG sells all oil at a discounted figure per barrel and the discount goes directly into the pockets of the ruling families as well as Turkish dictator, President Recep Tayyib Erdogan.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The so-called discount is a lie. It is what they apply in falsified accounts – the real take -home pay for the KDP, PUK, All Parliamentary Group profiteers in the UK and other top players in the KRG is close to $5 million a day.
“These criminals between them split the oil proceeds of the 60,000 bpd that goes to the Dukan refinery. It is generally assumed that the oil moves via Croatia, but it is actually being transported via Trieste in Italy, near Croatia. It is then routed via pipelines to Bavaria via Vitol, Carlyle, Glencore, Rosneft, and via Bazan’s offshore refinery through the likes of multi-millionaire Kurdish MP, Nadhim Zahawi and his UAE, UK, and KRG partners.”
The misleaders at the top of the KDP and PUK have become the biggest Kurdish nation. As they now own everything they enjoy the military and economic power to be able to continue their course without restraint until the revolution comes.
Instead of re-election the ‘kings’ of the KDP and PUK merit prosecution for theft and fraud, seizure of the property of others. The true extent of their criminal activity is startling: enormous land holdings with palaces in Kurdistan and property abroad. The Barzani family own most of Erbil. For example, Sirwan Barzani is the lord of Kurdistan Tower, mall, hotel and business centre as well as Korek, the only mobile company in Erbil.
The oil ministry that was once based in the Kurdistan Parliament now sits imposingly on the new road Gulan conveniently located by Kurdistan Bank (CEO Nechirvan Barzani) and RT Bank (Regional Trade Bank) of which the major share holder is also Nechirvan Barzani, the bank owned by his aunt’s husband, Salar Hakim.
Nechirvan Barzani also owns Salahaddin Holding and the Ster (Star) Group with control of Pepsi and Coca Cola. He owns the Divan Five Star Hotel and his private property in the centre of Erbil has its own private underpass and takes up a fifth of the inner city over some 50 hectares. The palace is entirely walled off from view. The palace and compound was formerly occupied by al-Douri when governor of Kurdistan under Saddam Hussein. It was then seized during the Kurdish uprising by the Kurdish rebel forces and changed hands several times before becoming the private property of Nechirvan Barzani. It is not the residence of the Prime Minister as with No. 10 Downing Street – it is Barzani’s personal property.
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Mr Botox: Nechirvan Barzani campaign billboard for the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
Who owns what? Who owns all?
When in post as PM, Barham Saleh was also provided with a luxury residence, which he has been privileged to keep. It is rumoured to be valued at more than $10 million. Barham was intimate with the CIA and worked closely with Zalmay Khalizad. His reported wealth last time we checked was around $3.2 billion. Barham got approximately $ 1 billion when he agreed with Nechirvan and Hawrami with Erdogan to have pipeline built to Turkey. Barham’s greatest accomplishment is the American Unversity at Sulaimaniyah, that made him some $600,000 when built. Now he is running as head of a new party called the Coalition of Democracy and Justice (CJD), pledging to fight corruption. Most locals laugh: they don’t see change coming anytime soon and they don’t believe their vote will change a thing – it’s too late – corruption is essential to continuity. “Mistaken policies, misreading local and foreign realities, failure to care for the public interest, and holding hands “with the enemies of the nation,” brought Kurdistan to “an unwanted condition,” he explained to KDP’s media organ, Rudaw, introducing his party as a new political, democratic organization…”[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
UK and USA dirty business in Kurdistan and Iraq
“When Iraq was invaded it drove the oil prices up, without even getting to the oil in Iraq, the same again by the US, France, USA bombing Syria over the last 18 months.
“Ashti Hawrami is he is wrapped in the Union Jack: he is protected better than any UK PM or former PM and has done the UK’s dirty work for decades. He is a personal of the Thatcher Family, same with Major, Blair and Cameron, more so with Theresa May and her husband, Philip May. He has more solid hands than most, his part at the capital group runs right through Kurdistan.”
“The UK’s man “Hawrami” with Blair and Bush plan was to take Iraq land and give it to Barzani and Talabani, not the Kurdish people. Based in Jordan, CIA boss, David Manners owns Decapolis. From 2003 he worked with Jamal Daniel and the Levant Foundation (really Decapolis). His pay out came via Barzani, Hawrami, Ross Perot, and was funneled that route but onto Jersey, where Nechirvan Barzani got hold of the cash. Manners was for bringing them all down, but Nechirvan Barzani had to use Barham Salih to try to stop David Manners and Decapolis…
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Barham Salih, Iraqi election campaign, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo credit: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
PUK – Bbottomless pockets
Aza Doğramacı[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], a close to the Talabani family, owns Federal Petroleum. Among the biggest of the criminals in PUK area, he receives 10% of the oil proifts. The PUK/Talabani and KDP/Barzani family get 50%. Bafel Talabani and Ashti Hawrami get 30% and a well-known UK MP of Kurdish origin receives10% through a Dubai company.
Hewa Karamani, a frontman for Bafel Talabani, was “owner” of Tigris Energy that owns the Dukan Refinery where all the oil comes from. WZR (now Crest Investments owned by Jamal Daniel) comes from there. He also has a share in Khalakan PSC. Other oil comes from Kor Mor and goes to Dukan. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]The above is back up for the Italian pipeline. The KRG also send oil to Sardinia that goes to Rosneft’s refinery on Sardinia. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Another of Bafel Talabani’s lynchpins, who fronted deals, is Ahmed Sarchil Qazzaz. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
International legal procedings apace
The FDI Account in the UN used to send the Iraq Ministry of Finance the proceeds minus the 6% due to Kuwait and that money went into the budget.
In 2011, the KRG stopped sending the 110, 000 bopd via the pipeline and trucked it to Turkey with the other 40,000 bopd they were already trucking. Iraq objected and warned the KRG they would be subjected to removal of their share of the budget if they continued to send oil to Turkey.
In 2012, the KDP peshmerga destroyed the NOC Kirkuk pipeline that was sending the oil from Kirkuk to Turkey, and then started their own pipeline that they had been working on since July 2011.
The UN warned the KRG and Turkey that they could not use the pipeline to transit Iraq oil to Turkey and both would be liable to repay Iraq with the Turks bearing the biggest responsibility and the KRG were summoned by the UN to Baghdad over the 6% to Kuwait and where was the missing $ from the oil.
The full legal ramifications are clear that anyone (i.e. KRG) violating that IPT under international law becomes a guilty party as well as those with whom they transit the oil to Turkey.
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Section of exposed oil pipeline on Debaga-Kirkuk road, Erbil Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri
Laizer/Ekurd.net
Iraq listed the IPT violation in the Paris Court of Arbitration in July 2014, after the KRG failed to attend the Iraq Supreme Court three times.
The cost of the oil sent through the pipeline since 2013 has cost Iraq $52 billion, but it also means that the KRG and Turkey are solely responsible for paying 6% of that to Kuwait. The UN motion passed on the violation of the IPT was held against Turkey and the KRG. It named Halkbank as well as Botas and the KRG MNR.
Basically, Rosneft has bought 60% of the KRG pipeline they built with money from XOM, Turkey and the ICG budget. It basically means Rosneft own a part of a KRG oil pipeline, but not according to any legal IPT held by Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, Northern Oil Company. The KRG pipeline transiting oil out of Iraq is still illegal and has been ruled on, so what in reality has Rosneft brought? [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
For any oil to leave Iraq legally by the KRG-Turkey pipeline it would require Baghdad to set up a new IPT with Turkey; it would need the KRG and Turkey to pay 6% of the $52 billion owed to the FDI at the UN and that to be paid on to Kuwait. At the present time Kuwait holds the full legal rights to seize any oil from Turkey/Kurdistan and take it as payment. It can also seize anything else from Turkey and Kurdistan.
Impoverished Peshmerga betrayed
Despite the eye-watering plunder, in February 2018, the US again agreed to pay $360 million for the present year for the peshmerga’s salaries to be paid in monthly instalments to the KRG. The peshmerga are not receiving their salaries.
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Former peshmerga General Salahi from Kirkuk asks– Reward for service- Ruins of an abandoned construction site in Erbil, Deshte Beheshte, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
While talk abounds, joint action is limited, including over the issue of re-deploying the Peshmerga forces to disputed areas, allowing ISIS to regroup in the interim. Rudaw reported the stalemate to be ongoing as of 5 April, Jabar Yawar, the secretary-general of the Peshmerga ministry told reporters” “So far there has been no official meeting between KRG’s Ministry of Peshmerga and Iraq’s Ministry of Defense or between the regional government and the Iraqi federal government on how to deploy the Peshmerga forces alongside the Iraqi federal forces in the disputed territories…”[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]No love is lost between the Kurds and the PMU. In the Kirkuk take-over of 16 October last, some 240 PMU militia members and 67 peshmerga lost their lives. The PMU used US Abrams tanks against the Kurds to the consternation of the Americans that provided the equipment for deployment in the war against IS, not internal dispute.
Thousands of families from Kirkuk that are historically connected with the KDP remain displaced, including in abandoned construction sites like Deshte Beheshte (Field of Paradise) in the new suburb of Kesnazan.
Among the Kirkuki families are former peshmerga General Tariq Mouloud Salahi and his family. Tariq has seen it all – 35 years displaced from home under Saddam. Since 16 October 2017, forced to abandon everything anew and flee with his adult peshmerga son and family, Turkmen have seized their home. Now they find themselves in yet another of the hundreds of abandoned construction sites – Deshte Beheste begun by Turk Kurd singer, Ibrahim Tatlises and partners who have left before completing the project they began in 2009 – now an unfinished ghost town. “You are the first to have come here to ask about us here” he complained.
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One of numerous blocks of stalled construction sites in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
Ghost construction sites
Since Baghdad cut the payments to the KRG, huge construction sites across the Kurdish capital comprising hectares of land allocated to projects for new model villages, high rise apartment complexes, shops and Malls, stand half finished or barely begun. Private buyers that invested in these projects must now go to court to obtain access to the property they purchased as a finished project. They then have to try to finance and finish building it themselves. Going to court will cost money and an take years.
The new Asayish complex – High-cost intimidation completed project
In staggering contrast, the new General Directorate of Security headquarters[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] incorporating the Asayish Security Council and Intelligence Agency (Parastin) is a 60 m2 construction site on the Kirkuk road in front of Naza Mall and near 92 Apartments, costing some $88.6 million.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Turkish Kürk Construction (Kürk İnşaati Irak (Erbil) established in Mersin in 1981, with offices registered in Mersin and Erbil, is the construction company.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Model for the New Security Headquarters – General Directorate of Security, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan – the realtynow built is far more grim, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
The on-site short term jail – or detention facility – processes political and other detainees, such as foreigners recruited to fight for the YPG and ISIS prisoners.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] If charged they are moved on to the outer Erbil prison facility near the bland new Kasnazan neighbourhood where in 2014 an arms market thrived from the sale of private weapons for protection in case ISIS rolled in.
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Whilst the complex is vast and the interiors luxurious, acacording to visting officials, the detainees are kept in a very confined space on the excuse that it is a short-term detention facility.
The grey complex sends an intimidating message about who is firmly in control. Dominating the landscape, partially blocked from street view by bomb blast walls, its logo is a watching eye, reproduced at regular intervals.
Another cost of war: the misery of 1.5 million refugees and IDPs in KRI
Not all IDPs and refugees are registered: if they don’t require support and shelter they can merge with friends and families in cramped conditions.
For the others, conditions remain rudimentary to say the least. Vast camps sprawl across open barren tracts of stony land, rough stuctures and basic tents as far as the eye can see as with Khazir M1 camp on the Mosul road, home to some 9000 IDPs and the three Debaga camps on the Dibis-Kirkuk road with similar capacity. There are ten camps in Erbil alone host to 40, 535 individuals and all remain open.
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IDP numbers went up overall after the 16 October 2017 government claw-back of the KRG’s territory liberated from IS and forcible take-over of Kirkuk.
The Shi;a militia (PMU) used prohibited US Abrams tanks and expended millions of bullets to gain the military advantage overt the shocked peshmerga forces. It is illegal to use such weapons against your own people. Peshmerga described the sky being red with the ammunion fired by the PMU against them. Now there is a tense standoff at the Kirkuk checkpoints from the KDP dominated area.
The PUK faces no such problems coming directly from Sulaimaniyah. From Erbil, detours taking time on poorly maintained roads send out a strong message about Abadi’s punishment for the referendum. Under Iraqi law, the referendum was entirely legal.
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Iraqi Prime Minister al-Abadi’s office in Erbil, Kurdistan region in last days before the vote, May 2018. Photo: Sheri Laizer/Ekurd.net
Same old faces – elections 2018
Iraq’s streets, public spaces, traffic lights, are hung with the posters and flags of the competing parties and candidates ranked in order of importance, hundreds only standing to reap neighbourhood votes that will contribute to the central pot of the party.
There are no campaign pictures of al-Maliki in the KRG where he is despised for having wrought massive destruction to Iraq.
Iraq-wide corruption
The Kurdish misleaders are not alone in boastful corruption. When in office as PM, Nouri al-Maliki diverted cash to Tehran. Other cash sums were diverted to UAE, Turkey, European countries and the US. $360 billion went missing from state funds under Maliki’s eight-year tenure according to a spokesman for the Iraqi Commission of Integrity.
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As for al-Abadi, the Kurds consider him too weak to be able to reel in the PMU and hold Iraq together. Not hated like al-Maliki, he is not seen as a doorway to future stability.
One commentator observed: “Abadi was never elected as PM: he was placed in that position by the UK and when all is said and done, he is a mere lift operator – an engineer: Can you imagine having a lift operator taking control of Iraq? Well that is where the UK put him and that will be hard to change. “
On the Kurdish street, little confidence is expressed in the same old faces. A hung parliament is expected with the Hashd al-Shaaabi candidates who stepped down from their militia command potentially able to secure enough seats to legally impose Tehran’s presence.
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