Kurdish government: Settle oil row at home

Settling claims over which entity has the authority to sell Iraqi crude oil is a matter for the Iraqi courts, the Kurdistan Regional Government said.

The semiautonomous KRG filed suit in a U.S. court challenging a filing from Baghdad requesting the seizure of oil loaded on the United Kalavrvta tanker parked off the coast of Galveston, Texas.

Lawyers for the government in charge of roughly the northeastern third of Iraq argued the U.S. court system is no place for the legal battle.

"This is a dispute firmly rooted in Iraq, and it will not and cannot be resolved by application of maritime law," the Monday filing said.

Baghdad, in a separate filing in a Greek court last week, accused Marine Management Services of turning off transponders on the United Kalavrvta to avoid detection and conducting ship-to-ship oil transfers at sea.

U.S. courts have said the dispute stems from where the oil was extracted. Both Iraqi governments have made competing claims over who has the right to export oil. Washington sided with Baghdad, but said the issue was a commercial matter.

Previous seizure requests were denied because the vessel in question was outside U.S. territorial waters.