“Any oil taken out of the country and its payments do not go to the Iraqi people through the central government is considered as taking over Iraq's national wealth,” Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister , Hussain al-Shahristani said in a statement received by “Shafaq News”.

Shahristani said, speaking in Australian city of Sydney, where he attends a conference , as he is also adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister for Energy that, “There are a number of ways the Iraqi government is in the process of study and any responsible government would give the same priority to the protection of people's wealth”.

Oil exports from Taq Taq field in Kurdistan region began to the Turkish port of Mersin in small quantities early January as it is expected to rise to over 40 thousand barrels per day (bpd). It is expected to reach up to about 60 thousand bdp by the end of June.

In a retaliatory move the state-owned Iraqi Oil Marketing Organization sent messages warning customers from buying any oil not marketed by the company as the oil ministry plans to sue the producing companies, especially, the Turkish- English Genel Energy Company.

Via intermediate Turkish company , Select Energy , German company bought the first two shipments from Taq Taq oil field in April and contracted to buy a third shipment of 80 thousand tons.

The Iraqi government says that it is expected for Kurdistan to provide 250 thousand bdp of Iraq's oil exports in 2013, which is would reach 2.9 million bdp.