US State Dept supports Cyprus’ right to search for offshore gas

A senior US State Department official has repeated Washington’s support for Cyprus’ right to carry out an offshore search for oil and gas, AP reported. Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell said after talks with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Friday in Nicosia that the US also wants to see a resumption of talks to reunify the ethnically divided island nation.

Iraqi Kurds slam Baghdad legal action over oil shipment

Iraq's Kurdish region slammed legal action filed by the central government against Turkey, saying Sunday it was illegitimate and likely to fail, the latest in worsening ties between Baghdad and Kurdistan.
 
The Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources statement came just days after Baghdad's Oil Ministry filed a request for arbitration against Ankara at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce after crude from Kurdistan was exported to international markets via a Turkish port.

Relations between Iraq and its Kurdish region, and between Baghdad and Ankara, were already fragile and are likely to chill further over the row, with the latest shipments flying in the face of the Iraqi government's insistence that it has the sole right to sell its prized natural resources.