A Feb. 15 ruling by Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court that deemed the 2007 oil and gas law governing the country’s Kurdistan region to be unconstitutional is a huge blow to the Kurdistan Regional Government, with direct ramifications for its critical energy deals with Turkey, sources say.
The KRG used the law to develop its own oil and gas sector independently of Baghdad, part of a concerted effort to wean itself off the central government as it pursued outright independence, signing multi-billion-dollar deals with international oil companies. The KRG’s official justification is that Baghdad has and continues to fail to give the Kurdistan Region its fair share of the national budget and oil revenues.