Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Iraqi government on devolution of powers to the Kurdistan regional government.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The autonomy of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq remains enshrined in the 2003 Iraqi Constitution. The Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), our Ambassador to Baghdad, our Consul General in Erbil and I emphasise regularly with both the Government of Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government the UK’s aim to see a stable, democratic, prosperous and unified Iraq. We also work actively to ensure that both the Kurdistan Regional Government and Government of Iraq cooperate to resolve their differences. In that context we welcome the recent revenue sharing agreement over Kirkuk oil.