Kurdish Leader Urges Decentralized, Free Market Policy on Iraqi Oil: Qubad Talabani - the main Kurdish Regional Government representative in th US and the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani - recently called for decentralized control of Iraq’s oil resources, and for a more free market policy on oil:
We’re trying to modernize Iraq, build a new Iraq, built on new foundations, new policies. The symbol of this new Iraq will be how it manages its oil infrastructure,” Talabani said. “And if people want to revert back to Saddam-era policies of a state-controlled oil sector with no accountability, with no accountability to the Parliament or the people of the country, with no oversight except from by one or two, then I’m sorry, that is not the Iraq that the Kurds bought into. That is not the Iraq that the Kurds would want to be part of.”
“If a centralized oil regime is imposed on us, we will not participate in the state of Iraq,” Talabani said. “And we have to make it absolutely clear to our friends in Washington, to our brothers in Baghdad, this is a make-or-break deal for Iraq.”
He said Iraq needs to embrace the free market and break free from the nationalized mindset. Numerous oil and Iraqi experts as well as key Iraq oil union leaders have told UPI that Iraqis see nationalized oil with pride.
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