The road that leads into Bashmakh is dominated by a snaking line of lorries whose tankers are filled with crude oil products being smuggled into neighbouring Iran in defiance of US sanctions.Surrounded by the lush green fields and rolling hills of northern Iraq, the border crossing at this small village is a focal point in a fierce dispute that is breeding resentment between Kurds, the Baghdad government and Washington.

The drivers, whose inventories are said to include gasoline, gas oil and naphtha, wait day and night to reach the Iranian side of the border. Most of them spend their dead time praying or eating at the side of the road. Omar Hassan, 30, a Sunni Arab from the northern city of Mosul, said he had been waiting in the queue for three days, prior to heading to ports in southern Iran where at least some of the refined oil products will be loaded for export.

“Each truck carries 25 tonnes of oil, and we head to Bandar Abbas,” said Hassan, standing in the shadow of his truck to hide from the boiling midday sun in Bashmakh, 375 kilometres (230 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Although the autonomous Kurdish regional government in the city of Arbil concedes that smuggling is a problem it insists most exports are legitimate, as the fuel products are excess to local requirements. Regardless of the Kurdish stance, the sending of shipments to Iran, which is said to re-sell at least some of the fuels on the open market, has national and international repercussions.

The permits that allow Iraqi and Turkish drivers to cross the border are issued by Kurdish authorities, in apparent defiance of the central government, with which a major row over the split of oil revenues rumbles on. The oil ministry in Baghdad has been angered by the apparent selling of goods that it imported from abroad in the first place, as it says they were sent to the Kurdish region for the exclusive use of its citizens. “If there was a surplus, it would be strange to send it outside the country, because Iraq imports it for Iraqis,” Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said on Tuesday, pointing out that the subsequent export revenues are being wrongfully pocketed by Kurdish authorities rather than the Baghdad government. Courtesy:KHALEEJ TIMES