Kassem Issues Warning To Oil Company

Press, Volume C, Issue 29672, 16 November 1961, Page 15

Kassem Issues Warning To Oil Company

(N .Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyrig nt) BAGDAD, November 15. The Iraq Prime Minister (MajorGeneral Abdul Karim Kassem) said in a statement released last night, that the first legislation designed to protect Iraq’s oil rights would have a “profound effect.”

Referring to the Government’s three-year-old deadlocked talks with the Iraq Petroleum Company, he said other steps would be taken if imperialism did not submit to the country’s legitimate rights. General Kassem was addressing officials of the Education Ministry on Sunday. The text of his remarks was released last night.

Negotiations between the Government and the Iraq Petroleum Company on future exploitation of the country’s oil broke down on October 11. The Government then announced it had prepared legislation to restrict oil companies’ operations in Iraq to oil wells at present in production and to take away the remaining concessionary areas from the companies. General Kassem said Britain would not last long after it was deprived of the wealth of Iraq and other countries on which it subsisted.

The Iraq Prime Minister said that in 1925. Britain had threatened to oppose Iraq in the League of Nations over plans for developing oil in Iraq’s Mosul region if Iraq did not give up its demand for a 20 per cent share and allowed France a share in the oil

Referring to the Kurdish insurrection last September, General Kassem said imperialism had tried the same

game then but this “rash imperialistic movement" was crushed in only seven days. General Kassem also said Britain had robbed Iraq of Kuwait by granting it a false independence. He added that maps bearing the name Persian Gulf instead of Basru or Arab Gulf must be amended immediately.