Article: “Parliamentary Power: 4 points of contention hinder voting on oil and gas law ”
In my opinion, the HCL will be the law that pushes the Kurd’s to hold a referendum and try to separate from Iraq.
There have always been two HCL’s, one was a centralized, socialist type law that empowered Baghdad to make all the decisions regarding oil, they would sign deals with the oil companies, determine where drilling would take place and collect 100% of the money’s involved.
The Kurd’s and a couple of other provinces, aren’t for that.
They want more control and input over the process and want to limit the centralized approach that got Iraq into the oil mess they’re in now.
Iraq has delayed the provinces desire for their own laws and authorities, this will only further subjugate the provinces to the out of touch MP’s in Baghdad.
By all appearances, Maliki and the Reform Front can get just about any legislation pushed through now in Parliament, just look at the messed up Amnesty Law that was just passed.
If Maliki can get his version of the HCL pushed through, he can criminalize the actions of the Kurd’s when they sell oil outside of the SOMO network.
Barzani won’t wait for that to happen.
Again, this is just an opinion.
