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Iraq's oil squabble heats up again
Iraq's independence-minded Kurds are clashing once again with the Baghdad government over the increasingly tendentious question of sharing oil revenues.
The feuding threatens to turn the issue into a major power struggle that could result in the splintering of the post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi state.
On Oct. 9 the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government declared it was halting all oil exports from the Kurdish region in northern Iraq until Baghdad pays the international companies operating there.
This was a blatant challenge to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which insists it is the only authority that can sign oil deals in Iraq and that all revenue goes through Baghdad before being distributed to regional governates.