Word: iraq
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...IRAQ NATIONAL OIL CO. rose to power after the government in 1972 seized almost all the concessions, equipment and pipelines of the Iraq Petroleum Co., a consortium that included British Petroleum, Shell, Exxon and Mobil. Iraq has estimated reserves of 31.5 billion bbl., and I.N.O.C. manages exploration and production, though it still sells some to the majors. I.N.O.C. has a big plus: an adequate supply of trained personnel, many of them schooled abroad largely at the expense of the major international oil firms...
...latest explosion of violence in the Middle East does not involve Arab and Israeli. It pits Moslem against Moslem. On the long-embattled 630-mile border between Iraq and Iran, troops of the two oil-rich nations blazed away at each other last week in a battle that left perhaps as many as 65 dead and 103 wounded. It was the third and most serious clash in less than two months, involving tanks and artillery. Each side claimed that the other had initiated the hostilities, but both in fact had been spoiling for the fight...
Though they share the same religion, the two countries could hardly be more different. Iraq is an Arab state, governed by the left-wing Baathist regime and aligned with Moscow. Iran is a conservative, Western-oriented monarchy whose people are of predominantly Aryan origin. The Iraqis are armed by the Soviets; the Iranians bought some $2 billion worth of U.S. arms last year...
...Hormuz, through which 120 tankers a day carry a little more than half the oil consumed by the non-Communist world. Iran earlier had abrogated a treaty granting equal navigational rights to the crucial Shatt al-Arab, a confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates that leads to the gulf. Iraq feared that Iran was attempting to cut off its oil routes from Khor al-Amaya, Iraq's principal oil terminal at the top of the gulf. Iraq broke off diplomatic relations with Iran...
...older, more bitter bone of contention is the fate of the Kurds, the nomadic people who inhabit a mountainous region that includes parts of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. The Kurdish tribes have long sought nationhood but are divided politically between left-and right-wing elements, which are supported respectively by Iraq and Iran-each of which accused the other of trying to subvert its native Kurdish leadership...