Seizure of Oilfields Fuels Kurd Statehood Dream

Along the desert horizon around Kirkuk, the bright flares from oil wells puncture the summer haze. An estimated 4 percent of known global oil reserves lie beneath these sands.  It is a prize that Iraq’s Kurds, and its other ethnic and tribal groups, have long sought to control. The Kurds’ opportunity came Friday, when their Peshmerga fighters seized the Kirkuk and Bai Hassan oil fields. The Kurdistan Regional Government’s Minister for Natural Resources says the Kurds will be...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - mardi 15 juillet 2014