Barzani’s Washington Trip: PR Without Substance

May 12, 2015 By administrator

Family trip? Presdient Barzani is greeted by his son and grandson

What to make of President Massud Barzani’s visit this week to Washington? His Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) supporters want to trumpet the occasion as an example of their leader performing on the world stage, negotiating face-to-face with the US president on critical issues such as securing direct military aid for the Peshmarga and independence for Kurdistan. But the truth is that no substantive gains were achieved for the people of Kurdistan. Instead Barzani has treated us to a costly PR exercise – a deception for internal consumption, designed to help prolong his grip on power.

The pro-KDP media in the Kurdistan Region is trying hard, almost North-Korea-style, to misrepresent reality. ‘White House supports Kurdish demands’ said ‘Bas News’, which is owned by President Barzani’s son Masrour, who is also chancellor of the Security Council. It claimed that ‘Kurds have green light to declare independence’. The pro-KDP ‘Khabat’ and ‘Hawler’ celebrated Barzani’s apparent big achievement in being ‘received at the White House like the president of a developed country’.

Here is what actually happened.

When Barzani arrived in the US he was greeted at the airport, not by a mobilisation of the Kurdish émigré community nor by any senior US officials but rather by his sons and grandsons and two junior US officials.

Barzani was not a guest of the White House: his invitation came from the State Department.

On Tuesday he did not meet US President Barrack Obama in the Oval Office: he had a White House meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden, and Obama showed up to participate halfway through their discussion.

During this meeting Barzani did not raise the issue of independence for Kurdistan and the US President and Vice President reaffirmed their commitment to a united Iraq.

Biden rejected Barzani’s call for the US to directly arm the Peshmerga – instead of sending all its weaponry to Baghdad – and yet Barzani still agreed that the Peshmerga will engage fully in the highly risky Mosul operation against ISIS due to take place this summer.

What was achieved by the Kurdistan president and his sizeable delegation (which included, as usual, the KRG foreign minister acting as Barzani’s interpreter)? Some misleading headlines.

On Wednesday, Barzani delivered a speech to the Atlantic Council – an organisation reportedly with interesting financial links to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) – full of the usual rhetoric and repetition, boasting once again that “independence is coming” but providing no answers to the KRG’s growing problems.

He did refer to the terrible atrocities suffered by the Shengal Yazidis, but only to blame this on “local tribes”, even though everyone knows that Barzani’s KDP forces fled the area last summer and left the Yazidis at the mercy of ISIS. The KDP is trying to re-write history (and there are reports of Yazidi refugees being sacked and victimised for speaking the truth about what happened to them), but this will only serve to remind people of a shameful betrayal.

As the clock ticks towards the expiration of Barzani’s extended presidential term, the Kurdistan Parliament’s majority of non-KDP MPs should not be fooled by the Washington razzmatazz and they must not waver from their democratic responsibility to renew the presidency and establish a parliamentary system of government.

Sales of Kurdish oil point to beneficiaries close to Erdoğan

April 4, 2015 By administrator

By DOĞAN ERTUĞRUL / ISTANBUL

Kurdistan, Turkish Cash Cow (photo gagrule)

People close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are the beneficiaries of a lucrative oil deal signed between Ankara and Arbil that has laid the framework for the transfer of Kurdish oil, as the company granted the exclusive right to the transfer through Turkey is run by a former deputy candidate from the ruling party and an ex-official from Çalık Group, a company known to have ties with the ruling party.

Furthermore, according to a book written by the Hürriyet daily’s Washington correspondent, Tolga Tanış, Powertrans, the company that was given the exclusive license to carry and trade Kurdish oil by the cabinet shortly after its foundation in 2011, is run by Berat Albayrak, who is married to Erdoğan’s daughter, Esra Albayrak.

Who are the people behind Powertrans? Well, Turkey has sought an answer to this question since the establishment of the company. According to trade registry data, the general manager of the company is a former deputy candidate from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Ahmet Sadi Güngör, who also previously worked in the Petroleum Trade Coordination department of Çalık Group. For this reason it is claimed that the company’s secret partner is Çalık group.

Players making profit from oil deal between Arbil and Baghdad not known.

On Dec. 29, 2013, a new relationship between Turkey and Kurdistan began. On that day, Ankara and Arbil signed a series of agreements that had been in development for some time. The agreements, valid for 50 years, regulate the delivery of Kurdish oil and gas to the Ceyhan district of Adana, products which will then be sold on the international market.

As expected, Baghdad fiercely opposed the deal, accusing Arbil of “being in pursuit of independence.” The Maliki government also accused Turkey of “interfering in the sovereignty rights of Iraq,” but by then the genie was out of the bottle, and Ankara added new agreements to the deal in March 2014.

Access to Kurdish oil was indeed a great opportunity for Turkey and the region. But things did not go well. A transparent oversight mechanism open to international monitoring announced by Energy Minister Taner Yıldız was never established. Today it is unknown who buys Kurdish oil and who then sells it to whom at what prices, or how Turkey gains from the trade. It was only after Baghdad’s appeal to an international court of arbitration that people learned the names of the local and foreign companies selling Kurdish oil on international markets.

Due to the failure to establish a transparent mechanism to oversee the sales of oil extracted in northern Iraq, little is known about the buyers and sellers of the oil, extracted by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the price at which it is sold, or what Turkey gains as a gateway country for the Kurdish oil to be sold on international markets. The oil extraction capacity of the Kurdish region rose to 400,000 barrels per day as of January, while 150,000 of those barrels are sold on the domestic market.

The rest is flown to the Ceyhan pipeline in line with the agreement signed with Baghdad, while a portion of this oil is given to some oil extraction companies in order to pay off Kurdistan’s prior debts. According to information given by the Vice President of Arbil Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mele Mecid, the foreign companies and the Turkish companies extracting oil take 30 percent of all extracted oil in order to cover debts Arbil is unable to pay in cash. Oil companies then sell 30 percent of the oil they extracted on international markets at prices they determine.

On the other hand, no transparency has been achieved on the identity of the bank where these petro-dollars will be deposited, an issue which Ankara, Arbil and Baghdad have been negotiating. It had been announced that the parties had agreed on state-run Turkish bank Halkbank. Yıldız even announced in October 2014 that $700 million had been deposited in Halkbank. However, it is still a mystery how much revenue has been made by the sale of Kurdish oil today.

Due to regional circumstances, there is no mechanism in the KRG to monitor and oversee oil sales. The only functioning supervising authority is the Committee on Natural Resources in the Kurdistan Parliament. The committee obtains information from Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami periodically.

In an interview with Sunday’s Zaman, committee head Sherko Cevdet provided information about the official data and the process regarding oil sales.

“Kurdish oil is sold at low prices due the economic crisis in the Kurdish region. As of January, 34 million barrels of oil were sold, which is equal to $2.5 billion,” he said. “Oil companies and some intermediaries are making big money. No one wants them to be disclosed,” he continues.

Cevdet added there are some 30 companies from 19 countries operating in the Kurdish region and it is difficult to make oil sales transparent and place the sales under supervision.

According to him, in order to make the sales of Kurdish oil more transparent, the disagreement between Baghdad and Arbil should be overcome. But there is little hope for a resolution of the crisis in the near future.

When asked, Arbil Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vice President Mele Mecid said, “What is the role of Ankara in the sale of Kurdish oil?” He said Turkey has a vital role in the sale of Kurdish oil after the energy agreement between the KRG and Turkey, which fundamentally changed the oil trade.

“There used to be tankers which shipped oil through land and a railway until the deal was made with Turkey. After the agreement, a limitation was placed on the trade made through tankers because Kurdish oil now flows directly to Ceyhan,” he says.

“The sale of Kurdish oil is under the control of the Turkish Energy Ministry. The ministry knows how much oil was sold, who bought it and how much money was deposited because the agreement stipulates so. On the subject of private companies, well, every government can grant some privileges. Turkey could have given privileges to some companies as well,” he added.

Delay in money transfers with Halkbank

“It is true that there is a bank account of Kurdistan in Halkbank. All the petrodollars used to be deposited there. But now not all the money is accumulated in Halkbank. Two new accounts were opened in the US and Germany as money transfers was not convenient with Halkbank. Money is now being transferred more rapidly. Halkbank was transferring money slowly due to a shortage of cash. Because of that, new accounts have been opened,” says Cevdet.

Even Kurdish Parliament does not know the fate of the money deposited in Halkbank. “We don’t know how much was withdrawn from the money accumulated in Halkbank. We don’t know how much interest rate the money yielded as well,” Cevdet said.

Iraq possesses 8.7 percent of oil reserves in the world, which is equal to 143 billion barrels. Around 30 percent of Iraqi oil reserves are located in the Kurdish region.

A total of 550,000 barrels of oil a day flow into Ceyhan from the Kurdish region and Kirkuk.

Powertrans: Mysterious company granted privilege in Kurdish oil

Return to the biggest question regarding Kurdish oil: Which Turkish firms are participating in the sale of oil from northern Iraq? Is Powertrans, which was founded by businessmen close to President Erdoğan, selling Kurdish oil from Ceyhan to international markets as claimed?

The knowledge of Kurdish authorities and the businessmen involved in the oil business in the region regarding those who are selling the oil is limited. This is due to the fact that the procedure on the sale of oil was not institutionalized at Kurdish administrative level.

In addition to Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami and Prime Minister Nachirvan Barzani, only a few have thorough knowledge on the subject. Furthermore, the Kurdish authorities are not interested in those who sell oil in Ceyhan because of the terms of the agreement.

Nonetheless, the officials Sunday’s Zaman spoke to say the answer to the question is in the deal signed on November of 2013.

Interestingly, before Kurdish oil flowed into Ceyhan, debates on who would sell the oil had come onto the agenda of Parliament.

Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Aytun Çıray in a parliamentary inquiry had asked the energy minister what the agreement with Arbil featured, who was granted the license and privilege to transport Kurdish oil and, if it was true as claimed, according to which criteria Powertrans was given the privilege. However, no answer provided, as expected.

In response to a parliamentary question posed by CHP deputy Mevlüt Dudu on May of 2013, the ministry acknowledged that Powertrans had been given license to ship Kurdish oil from the Mediterranean to world markets.

But the questions asking which companies besides Powertrans had applied to transport the oil and according to which criteria the selection had been made were left unanswered, though it constituted an outright breach of the Constitution and Parliament bylaw.

Today no one, including Parliament, knows the terms of the agreement made with Arbil. Why? Because the KRG is not a sovereign state and thus the agreement made with it is not considered similar to agreements signed between states. It is qualified as an agreement based on terms of private law.

It also means the agreement did not require Parliament’s approval. The monitoring of an agreement worth billions of dollars was thus circumvented on a technical legal pretext.

On the other hand, Powertrans’ inclusion in the agreement is shrouded in mystery. According to data obtained by Sunday’s Zaman from KRG officials, Turkey founded an off-shore company to extract and sell Kurdish oil. The agreement with the KRG on the production of oil was made via this company.

The partners of the company that will operate in the six fields in the KRG include the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) and the Turkish Petroleum International Company (TPIC) — nothing wrong here. But according to claims, the company also has domestic and foreign partners that are subjected to private law terms. Could these partners include Powertrans? It’s highly likely. What is certain is that Powertrans has the privilege to buy and sell Kurdish oil flowing to Ceyhan.

Powertrans not responding to allegations

Though Powertrans has been at the center of debates for some time, no official explanation has been provided by company officials. Our request for a meeting was not accepted by officials staying at a plaza in Maslak.

The officials of the company, who left our questions unanswered, said “According to our business contract, even a general manager might be fired if he provides information about the company,” and upon our insistence, said if we sent questions via e-mail, they would notify the headquarters in Singapore and we would then be contacted by the headquarters.

But two weeks have passed and no response has been provided by Powertrans to the below questions:

-Does Powertrans export northern Iraq oil? In which other regions and countries does the firm have a presence?

-Is Powertrans the only firm entitled to export Kurdistan’s oil flowing to the Kirkuk-Yumurtalık pipeline?

-How much of the sales of 34 million barrels of oil since June of 2014 was done by Powertrans?

-What is the duration of the privilege granted by the Customs and Trade Ministry to Powertrans to sell oil?

-Is the money obtained by Powertrans after oil sales deposited in the Halkbank account of the KRG?

-Does your company have a partnership with the Çalık Group?

My questions may solve the mystery in the sales of Kurdish oil in Ceyhan to a certain extent. But the claims of illegality and fraud about the oil trade have not been satisfactorily explained because the answers should be provided by the Energy Ministry and the government that should monitor and provide transparency on the agreement.

Source: TodayZaman

The Roots of ‘Crazy’ in the Middle East

February 7, 2015 By administrator

Michael Rubin – Commentary Magazine

Massoud Barzani’s eldest sons Masrour and Mansour are giving Uday’s Saddam reputation a run for its money.

When it comes to bizarre and buffoonish behavior among leaders in the world, Kim Jong-un might be the leader of the pack, but the talent is deep in Middle East: Muammar Gaddafi would rant and rave. His UN speeches were feats of endurance for the audience as much as for Gaddafi himself. He surrounded himself with female bodyguards and his physical transformation rivaled only Michael Jackson. Gaddafi’s son Hannibal was a chip off the old block: After he and his wife beat two servants in a Swiss hotel, they arrested him. The resulting vendetta culminated with Gaddafi calling for a jihad against Switzerland. published on Ekurd

Qaddafi, of course, was not alone. Saddam Hussein might have been evil, but he was not crazy: he was cold, calculating, and ruthless, but he was positively sane next to his eldest son Uday Hussein. Uday’s exploits are well-known: He was a rapist, murderer, and psychopath. When Iraq’s national soccer team lost a game, he would beat them. Torture was for him an amusing game.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has inherited Gaddafi’s mantle for the flamboyant and bizarre. He is unrepentantly corrupt, thin-skinned, and conspiratorial. Whereas many rulers can be dictatorial and/or adversarial, Erdoğan increasingly seems simply unhinged.

The Saudi royal family is notoriously cloistered, but some of the princes are hardly bastions of virtue behind the scenes. A single Saudi prince killed 2,100 endangered birds while on vacation in Pakistan. Heck, taking a vacation to Pakistan is hardly evidence of sound mind. And other Saudi royals stand accused of worse.

Even in Iraqi Kurdistan, normally thought of as an oasis of stability, there is quite a lot of crazy. Former President Jalal Talabani effectively exiled his eldest son Bafil to London as his behavior grew erratic, and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani’s eldest sons Masrour and Mansour are giving Uday’s reputation a run for its money. Not everyone would consider attacking a family rival in a Virginia dentist’s office wise, and even fewer would act on their impulse.

Why is it that the Middle East has become not only a region of dictatorships, but also a region of crazy? Under Saddam there was a joke about the sycophancy and the infallibility of rulers: Tariq Aziz was giving a press conference in which a reporter asked him whether elephants could fly. He answered “Of course not,” but then another journalist pointed out that Saddam said elephants could fly. Without missing a beat, Aziz said, “Ah, yes, but only very slowly.” In such a situation, Erdoğan has become Saddam’s successor as the master of flying elephants; no journalist would tell the sultan he has no clothes lest his newspaper be closed and he or his family imprisoned.

There are other reasons as well, especially when it comes to the children. As open and democratic as some leaders claim their countries to be, family remains paramount. Rulers surround themselves with sycophants who affirm their every move. To have been a Gaddafi, Barzani, or Saudi from the right line was to never have to say sorry. There were two sets of rules, mutually exclusive: That of the country and society and that of the family. Countries were mere playgrounds where even the most horrific abuse could be covered up with money. Money, power, and fame can be a volatile combination when mixed.

Leaders like Gaddafi and Barzani might consider themselves great thinkers or statesmen, but they tend to be poor fathers, allowing their children to grow up surrounded by servants who cater to their children’s every need and confuse respect for the leader with absolute deference to the child. Limits are arbitrary and ephemeral, and morality optional.

There is no hard-and-fast rule, and of course the individual matters. Qusay may have been bad, but he was not Uday; Qubad has not followed in Bafil’s footprints; and for every Saudi prince who becomes a psychopath, there are dozens who are merely massively spoiled.

An oddity of the odious is an obsession with Hollywood. Kim Jong-un, for example, is famously obsessed with Hollywood. First Lady Asma al-Assad pow-wowed with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. King Abdullah II of Jordan doesn’t fit the same moral mold, but he is a dictator—and a notorious trekkie. Perhaps, then, a good analogy to the crazy infusing the Middle East are Hollywood’s child stars. Being famous young and surrounded by sycophants has famously taken its toll on some child stars but not all. For every Lindsay Lohan there is a Mayim Bialik; and for every Macaulay Culkin there is a Ron Howard. Culture, upbringing, and values matter.

How tragic it is then that beyond war, terrorism, and potential recession, so much sycophancy, corruption, and impunity has transformed so many current and next generation leaders in the Middle East to the political equivalent of the cast of Different Strokes.

Read more by Michael Rubin

The most outrageous salary Iraq: Massoud Barzani Salary $400,00, per month,

January 14, 2015 By administrator

The question is where do Barzani deposit his salary in Kurdistan or at Erdogan Bank?

BAGHDAD,— Iraqi President and his deputies’ monthly salaries amount reach 269 million dinars (roughly $ 235,500) Iraqi MP for the Coalition of State Law, Awatif Naima said on Tuesday, indicating that this amount represents a waste of public money, Iraqinews reported.

”President Fuad Masum receives 80 million dinars ($ 70,000) as a monthly salary,” pointing out that, “All three of the Vice President of the Republic receive 63 million dinars as a monthly salary.” Naima said.

“The salaries of Masum and his deputies represent a waste of public money, particularly as we live in a critical economic crisis due to the drop in oil price,” she said, calling for “reducing the salaries of the three presidencies and those with high status into half to avoid the shortfall to the general budget.”

Kurdish magazine (Levin) reported in 2010, remuneration and the monthly salary of Massoud Barzani, the president of the autonomous Kurdistan Region in Iraq’s north is $400,000 dollars per month.

This amount is equivalent to the salary and allowances of Barack Obama President of the USA for a full year, because Obama is the salary ($ 33,333) dollars and only equal to ($400,000) dollars a year. The Kurdistan region budget not to exceed 8 billion dollars a year in return that the annual budget for the United States is ($14,264) trillion dollars.

Former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani monthly salary was 75 million Iraqi dinars, which make 900 million dinars (roughly $700,000) annually,

Need to be mentioned that a medical source in Erbil revealed in 2014 that the cost of treating Iraqi President Jalal Talabani amounted to $150 million USD from Iraq’s budget. The source said, in a statement to Iraqi News that “Talabani’s medical expenses during the first six months in Germany amounted to $120 million USD, indicating that he was transferred later to another place. The expenses spent on taking care of him were estimated at $30 million US dollars.”

Turkey’s move for Kobani skeptical, suspicious – analyst

November 2, 2014 By administrator

Turkey’s move to allow Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) forces, known as Peshmerga, to enter the Syrian town of Kobani is skeptical and suspicious, says an activist.

Sabah Jawad, director of the Iraqi Democrats against Occupation from London, said in an interview with Press TV that the move by Turkey and supported by Masrour Barzani group in Iraqi Kurdistan is a bit “skeptical and suspicious.”

“The Turkish government does not hide its intention of creating an exclusion zone near the frontiers of Turkey and Syria, and Barzani group actually has very strong alliance with Erdogan government against the central government in Iraq and they have been collaborating to basically isolate the central government in Iraq and plot against it,” the activist stated, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Peshmerga forces await further reinforcements to enter the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border to assist Kurds in the fight against the ISIL Takfiri militants.

The Syrian Kurdish fighters in Kobani say a group of ten Peshmerga fighters entered the besieged city on Thursday through the border crossing with Turkey to study the geography of the area. The group has temporarily left the city.

The Turkish government had long been refusing the Kurds to join the anti-ISIL fight, but Ankara unexpectedly announced last week that it would allow the Peshmerga to enter Kobani through the Turkish border.

The activist said Turkey considers the Kurdish resistance fighters in Kobani as terrorists but at the same time it declares that it wants to help the Kurds with the support of Barzani group in Iraq.

Kobani and its surroundings have been under attack since mid-September, with the ISIL militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages and killing hundreds of people. More than 200,000 people have also fled across the border into Turkey.

Video Shame on you Masoud Barzani by pumping billions of $$ in Turkey, “while kurds are massacred by Erdogan”

October 14, 2014 By administrator

‘Kurds see that IS is a Turkish subcontractor used against the Kurds. The state is fighting Kurds through IS.’

In this Episode:

– How Turkey used KLA in Serbia and created Kosovo

– How Turkey turn Azerbaijan against Armenia to get hold of Azerbaijan oil and turn Azerbaijan to Turkish Cash cow

– Turkey Turn georgia Against Russia

– Shame on you Masoud Barzani turn Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkish Cash cow.

Visit https://www.youtube.com/user/gagrulenet for all Gagrulenet videos

Kurdish independent state to come: Barzani

April 11, 2014 By administrator

BAGHDAD

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced on April 8 that an independent Kurdish state is to be established, pointing out that they are moving towards a confederation with Iraq.

Barzani‘s remarks came during an interview with Sky News Arabia TV, briefed by “Shafaq News.” Barzani pointed out that the Kurdish state has become a reality and this independence should be achieved in the near future. He stated that the events occurring in Iraq will lead to a confederation system. Iraq cannot “bear more conflicts” and the leaderships should sit together to end the current crises, Barzani added.

The relations between the Iraqi Kurdish region and Baghdad have been witnessing the highest degree of tension in the last period due to the lack of agreement on a number of outstanding issues repeated every year, including the problem of the Iraqi public budget, the export of oil from the region and the application of the constitutional Article 140, as well as political differences on power management in Baghdad.