Pat Dollard

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Baghdad, Apr 13, (VOI)- A Kurdish spokesman on Sunday described as “positive” the on-going negotiations between Kurdistan government chief and Iraqi Prime Minister over oil contracts concluded by the Kurds with international companies to invest in the region and the possible incorporation of the Peshmerga (Local Kurdish Fighters) into the Iraqi army.

“Over two meetings on Saturday, the talks between Kurdistan Premier Negervan Barazani and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were good and positive,” Feriyad Rawandozi told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI).

The spokesman for the Parliamentary Kurdish bloc (Kurdistan Alliance) added “in the first meeting the two sides dealt with the oil contracts concluded by the region government with international companies to invest there, the Oil and Gas draft law, the incorporation of the Peshmerga into the Iraqi army, the implementation of article 140 over Kirkuk and the relation between the central and regional governments.”

Rawandozi said that the second meeting was held behind closed doors.

Baghdad so far has refused to recognize all the contracts signed by the regional government with oil international companies to invest in the region and threatened to ban these companies from future deals with the central oil ministry, while the Kurds advocated that these contracts were “legal” according to the Iraqi Federal Constitution.

Maliki’s government also opposes to pay the 190,000-member-Peshmerga Kurdish forces from the Iraqi Defense Minister budget.

“Teams of experts from both sides will start today a round of talks on these issues,” the Kurdish spokesman explained.

On his part, Kurdistan Premier Barazani , who arrived in Baghdad on Friday, expressed the region government’s support to the moves taken by Prime Minister Maliki to impose the rule of law and combat “outlaws”, according to Rawandozi.

Since the last week of March, Iraqi security forces engaged in fight with what the government termed “gangs of criminals and outlaws” in the southern Iraqi city of Basra where the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi militia were active.