PM:04:08:31/03/2022
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SULAIMANI — Baz
Karim Barzanji, the CEO of the energy company KAR Group whose Erbil villa was
struck by a missile attack, denied media reports he was a party to a project to
export natural gas from the Kurdistan Region to Europe, Reuters reported on
Wednesday (March 30).
Barzanji denied a
report that his villa in the Kurdistan Region’s capital hosted a discussion on
a plan involving Israel for a new pipeline to export gas through Turkey to
Europe.
He told Reuters he did
not have the authority to be involved in such discussions and stated he did not
believe the Kurdistan Region had the capability to export its natural gas in
the near future, adding the local consumption of gas exceeded capacity.
The Prime Minister of
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Masrour Barzani, said during the
Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Dubai on Monday that the Region could
make up for part of the shortfall of oil brought on by the war in Ukraine
stating he was confident the Region would become "a net exporter of gas” in the
"near future.”
An Iraqi security official
cited by Reuters in a special report published on Monday claimed Barzanji’s
villa was the site of a meeting between Israeli and US energy officials and specialists
who discussed a new gas pipeline to Turkey.
The office of the
President of the Kurdistan Region, Nechirvan Barzani, said no such meetings
between US and Israeli officials on the pipeline took place at the villa and
stated there is no Israeli site in the Kurdistan Region.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the missile attack that struck
Barzanji’s home on March 13, claiming the strike targeted a Zionist "strategic
center.”
(NRT Digital Media)