BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister says the U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil Corp. has promised to reconsider its controversial deal with the northern self-ruled Kurdish region.
In October, the Texas-based company became the first oil major to sign a deal in the Kurdish region to search for oil in defiance of the central government's wishes.
Kurds and the Arab-led government in Baghdad are at loggerheads over who has the final say in developing hydrocarbon resources. Baghdad considers scores of oil deals signed unilaterally by the Kurds with oil companies as illegal, while the Kurds maintain the right to negotiate their own deals.
Nouri al-Maliki said on Wednesday that he met last week while in Washington with ExxonMobil's CEO Rex Tillerson who promised to "to study the subject again."
