Dec. 4, 2007 | Ben Lando, UPI Energy Editor

WASHINGTON,  The U.S. energy secretary "encouraged" the visiting Iraqi Kurdish region's oil minister to work with Shiite and Sunni Iraqis on a national oil law.

The Kurdistan Regional Government's oil minister and the deputy prime minister also met with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and other political and business officials during their two-week visit to Washington.

"The message was quite simply that we encouraged them to work with their counterparts … to develop an oil law in that country that would deal with the needs of all Iraqis," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at a news conference Tuesday hosted by the global energy information firm Platts. "I personally met with them and I personally encouraged them, didn't tell them what to do or how to do their job, but I did encourage them to work with the Sunnis and the Shia communities in Iraq to develop an oil law that makes sense. That was all. That was the message."

Bodman also said he's telling the central government of Iraq to make the oil law a priority as well.

He's not, however, pressing the international oil companies to refrain from or stop signing oil deals in Iraq prior to the law.

The KRG blames the central government for stalling the law and has moved forward with its own regional oil law and signed more than 20 deals with international oil companies.

Iraq's Shiite-majority government, as well as the Sunni minority, says the KRG's demands for decentralized control over the oil sector goes too far and criticizes the semiautonomous region's deals.

Iraq's national Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said he'll begin signing oil deals soon, relying on the Saddam-era oil law instead of the lagging new national oil law. Like the national government's critique of their deals, the KRG calls Shahristani's moves unconstitutional.

"We're talking to them in the same spirit that we're talking to the Kurds," Bodman said, "and that is we are encouraging them to get an oil law passed that would satisfy the needs of the Iraqi citizens."

The law is intended to delegate control and responsibility to develop Iraq's vast hydrocarbons sector but is stuck on disagreements as to whether the central government or regional and local governments should have control, as well as the extent foreign firms should be allowed to invest.

Most large firms are waiting for a national oil law, though the KRG has begun signing with small and medium companies, such as India's Reliance Industries, OMV of Austria, MOL of Hungary and Dallas-based Hunt Oil.

"We've talked to the companies all the time in terms of their general approach and attitudes and I have not found it necessary to tell them that Iraq needs a national oil law that will help find the country together," he said.

Bodman said he hasn't talked with U.S. firms involved in the KRG deals.