The KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources condemned the letter by SOMO as ‘nothing more than another drip in a stream of disinformation’. It went on to say that oil produced in the Kurdistan Region continues to be produced, shipped and sold, while investment interest remains and production is expected to increase.
These steps by Iraqi institutions are partly designed to derail the talks between the KRG and the federal government, which Prime Minister Barzani and Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi have agreed to.
Congress urges engagement with KRG
We are grateful that this urgent and important matter has garnered the attention of members of the US Congress who have urged the US government to support Erbil and to engage the KRG and federal government in order to ensure that the remarkable success of Kurdistan’s oil and gas market is not crushed for political reasons. Several members of the House of Representatives and Senators Bob Menendez and James Risch, leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in separate letters to the Administration, urged immediate engagement to safeguard the economic stability of the Kurdistan Region and its contribution to the world energy market.
High level visit to Washington
We were honored to welcome an inter-agency delegation to Washington earlier this month, led by Shoresh Ismail, Minister of Peshmerga Affairs.
The delegation met with Dana Stroul, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Defense, White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk, State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Jennifer Gavito, and Senators Marsha Blackburn and Jacky Rosen.
Minister Ismail thanked the United States for its support to Kurdistan in the dark days of the fight against ISIS and for the support it has continued to provide to the Peshmerga forces.
New York Kurdish Cultural Center
Turning to a celebration of Kurdish culture and cinema, our Kurdistan in America podcast this month features an interview with Xeyal Qertel, President of the New York Kurdish Cultural Center. The center will be hosting its annual Kurdish film festival in October and offers Kurdish language classes.
You can read about these topics in our newsletter below.
Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman
Representative to the United States
Kurdistan Regional Government
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