$8 mln: Too little for oil, very precious for Kurds

When compared to the enormous oil and gas Reich that is Iraq, $8 million is almost nothing, but it has historical meaning for the Kurds in Iraq.

It is the amount of the share of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) out of some $95 million that was sold over Turkey without the consent of the central Nouri al-Maliki government in Baghdad.

It is actually 17 percent of the total amount, but after dropping the production costs, transportation costs, Iraqi taxes, Kuwait fund and other cuts, only about $8 million remains for the treasury of KRG headquarters in Arbil.

The money is kept in Turkey’s government-controlled Halkbank. The bank was involved in the graft probe that started on Dec. 17, 2013 in the framework of oil-for-gold trade with Iran under U.S. sanctions and its former general manager in whose house some $4.5 million in cash was found in shoeboxes and had to resign. The Turkish government says the total amount of money sold to customers via Turkey was kept there on the Iraqi government’s behalf, ready to be paid to Baghdad upon request and it is likely the Kurds will only receive their share, despite the fact they tend to ask for all in order to get even with Baghdad for the shares they claim they have not received so far.

That was one of the reasons of Masoud Barzani’s visit to Ankara on July 14, where he met with all ranking Turkish officials from President Abdullah Gül, to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

But if he returns to Arbil with that symbolic amount of great value, that would count as a major victory for him toward his rhetoric regarding an independent Kurdish state. The Turkish government is already in trouble with the sectarian and ethnic conflict-hit Iraqi government...