• “We encourage Baghdad and Irbil to work together to expand domestic gas production as soon as possible

WASHINGTON: The United States said Tuesday it supported American energy companies’ contracts with Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region after the Iraqi government filed a lawsuit against them.

Regional prime minister Masrour Barzani announced the signing of the two deals valued at tens of billions of dollars during a visit to Washington, in which he met Friday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio in his meeting “commended” the deals with US companies, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.

“We encourage Baghdad and Irbil to work together to expand domestic gas production as soon as possible. These types of economic partnerships will benefit both the American and Iraqi peoples and help Iraq move toward energy independence,” she said.

“We also believe that US and Iraqi interests are best served by having a strong, resilient Iraqi Kurdistan region within a sovereign and prosperous federal Iraq

“As far as the nature of the lawsuits, obviously we are looking forward to continuing these kinds of deals. We expect these kinds of deals to flourish, and expect and would hope that they would be facilitated,” she said.

AFP