Iraq/Kurdistan: The Great Russian Oil Game in Iraqi Kurdistan

Apr 19, 2018 | Dmitry Zhdannikov, Reuters
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Last October, at the height of a political crisis in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, a letter arrived at the Iraqi oil ministry in Baghdad from Igor Sechin, head of Kremlin oil major Rosneft. The Baghdad government was showing a “lack of constructive position and interest” about Rosneft’s offer to develop southern Iraqi oilfields, Sechin wrote in the letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters. Kurdistan, a region of about 6 million people in northern Iraq, had just tried and failed to break away from the rest of the country. Baghdad had dismissed the Sept. 25 independence referendum and sent in troops to seize control of key oilfields - Kurdistan’s main source of income.