Iraq Government Says Agreement Made With Kurds on Oil Contracts - Bloomberg

Iraq, home to the world’s fourth- largest oil reserves, has reached a tentative agreement on crude exploration and revenue with the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri Kamil al-Maliki.

The central government and the Kurdish Regional Government have reached “mutually acceptable” solutions to long-standing disputes over oil, territory and Kurdish armed forces, Adal Barwari, al-Maliki’s adviser on Kurdish affairs, said in a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty interview published today on the U.S.- government funded news outlet’s website.

Barwari said in the interview that al-Maliki and Kurdish Prime Minister Barham Salih held talks in Baghdad in late October and appointed a trio of committees to hammer out their differences. Those committees completed their final reports on Nov. 5 and submitted them to al-Maliki and Salih, Barwari was cited as saying in the interview.

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