MESOP IN DEPTH : Kurdistan Region will be self-sufficient at the end of 2014: Ashti Hawrami

14-7-2014 – Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Minister of Natural Resources Ahsti Hawrami said the autonomous region will be self-sufficient by the end of this year, CBS reported.

The region will be free with its own revenue and will release itself from the dictatorship in Baghdad, he said, adding that the central government miscalculated the will of Kurdish people by cutting the region’s 17 percent share of the national budget.

“We will be self-sufficient by year-end. In terms of revenue, yes. See, Baghdad made the wrong calculation. They thought that they were strangling us by cutting our budget unfairly, illegally and unconstitutionally as a punishment. They have miscalculated the will of the Kurdish people; they fight back and we will match that expectation we have. We will be free with our own revenue as opposed to be being under the thumb of dictators in Baghdad,” Hawrami said. “Our people moved in to prevent sabotage essentially, and what we discovered actually is that they had even instructions to shut down all the other facilities to render it useless, in case they lost the Kurdistan region permanently.”

He added that there are plans for a larger refinery and a couple of smaller ones, and an expansion of another one in Bazian. “The Bazian (refinery) is under construction along with a couple of others for – let’s say – lighter oil or condensate oil,” he said.Kurdish forces of Peshmerga took control of two oilfields of Bai Hassan and Kirkuk on Friday, something that fueled tensions between the central government and the northern region whose President Massoud Barzani has recently asked the region’s local parliament to set a date for holding a referendum in the region to ask people if they want to remain a part of Iraq and like to have an independent state.