Memories of Iraqi Kurdistan
Michael Quentin Morton
Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) surveys laid the foundation of
our geological knowledge of Kurdistan and, for this reason, are still highly
relevant to modern oil exploration. But these activities also involved IPC
personnel living and working among the indigenous people of the region, and
their memoirs of the time provide a fascinating insight into a forgotten aspect
of oil exploration.
IPC in Kurdistan
The Turkish Petroleum Company, the forerunner of IPC, mounted
an expedition to Iraq in 1925–6, which included a brief survey of
Kurdistan. Following the discovery well at Baba Gurgur in 1927, the
company’s focus was on developing the massive Kirkuk oil field. It was not
until 1946 that the region was opened up to oil exploration again.
As well as prospecting for oil, IPC was interested in the
Kurdish mountains because their geology provided important clues about
the structure of the region. But Iraqi Kurdistan had a troubled history as its
people sought autonomy from Baghdad, and there were periodic outbreaks of unrest
which made oil operations dangerous. Most of the area was accessible only on
horseback and, apart from railway rest houses at Kirkuk and Mosul, a consulate
house in Sulaimaniya and a few public works shacks elsewhere, company employees
had to rely either on the hospitality of government officials or – more likely –
travel with their own tents and assistants. Journeys usually involved a
courtesy visit to officials en route, a lengthy process since custom demanded
the killing of a chicken or a goat in a guest’s honour.
Many of the scientists employed by the IPC group of
companies worked in Kurdistan at some stage in their careers. Among the
notable geologists and paleontologists who came and went was the
enigmatic figure of Robert George Spencer ‘Doc’ Hudson. A man of craggy
features and exceptional academic ability, Hudson had been a professor of
geology at Leeds University before joining IPC in 1946. His task was to study
the fossils, mostly invertebrate, collected by the company’s field parties. He
brought with him years of experience of the fossils, stratigraphy and geology of
northern England.
Although reluctant to accept his first eight-month assignment to
Iraq, Hudson enjoyed it enough to spend a full year in the company’s
laboratories at Kirkuk. He stayed on with the company until 1958, writing
extensively on the geology of the region and leaving to the company a 12-volume
loose-leaf quarto ‘Guide to Index Fossils of the Middle East’. He was considered
a leading authority on the subject (and on the carboniferous geology of
northern England and Ireland) when he died accidentally from carbon monoxide
poisoning in his rooms at Dublin University in 1965.
Kurdish Chieftains
It is remarkable how Kurdistan won the hearts of the IPC people
who worked there. My father, geologist Mike Morton, often spoke of it as the
finest place he had ever visited on his extensive travels around the Middle
East. ‘It’s cold here now,’ he wrote. ‘I went up to the Persian frontier last
week. It rained here too – and snow fell on the mountain peaks around the camp.
It’s a lovely part of the East – high mountains, trees, streams, wild birds,
squirrels, and in the higher parts, wild pig, bears, and ibex. There are even a
few leopards.’
Apart from the beauty of its natural landscape, this was a land
of larger-than-life figures. Among its chiefs was Babekr Agha of the Pizhdar
tribe. He was tall, gaunt and with a patch over one eye and a large aquiline
nose. Dressed in baggy trousers, a brightly coloured cummerbund and wearing a
turban, he presented an imposing figure. The men sitting around his majilis had
all the charm and humor for which the Kurds are renowned.
In the 1950s, relations between the Kurds and the company were
good. On one occasion, Babekr Agha arrived at the IPC hospital in Kirkuk for a
medical operation. To the dismay of the British staff, a retinue of about 50
armed men, all of whom expected to sleep beside their chief, accompanied him.
Aftermuch negotiation, staff persuaded them to camp outside in the hospital
grounds. John Davies was the IPC surgeon, a man who was so devoted to his work
that he stopped people in the street and, if they looked interesting enough,
invited them to come for an operation. In the Agha’s case, the operation was
successful and the patient, on his departure, paid tribute to the IPC management
while his tribesmen jostled to get into the room.
Another prominent chief was Suleiman Agha of the Herki tribe. IPC
liaison officer, Ian Macpherson, would often visit him to pay his respects. At
one lunch thrown in his honor, Suleiman Agha provided the customary fare of lamb
and rice cooked in the Persian style with apricots and walnuts. Unlike the
Arabs, the Kurdish women were unveiled and moved freely around the gathering,
although they did not eat with the visitors. They wore bright colors that
clashed rather than matched but, as Macpherson observed, the effect could be
dazzling in the strong clear light of an Iraqi spring. At the end of the lunch,
the customary Kurdish gesture of approval – a series of energetic belches –
followed. To judge by their efforts, they were well pleased, but Macpherson kept
his counsel, prevented by company ‘regulations’ from making his own
contribution.
At the center of Kurdish life was the town of Sulaimaniya, then a
maze of narrow alleys and mud brick houses. For those houses built on a
hillside, the roof of one formed the courtyard of the next row above – and so
on. At the end of one of these alleys was the house where Macpherson stayed when
recuperating from illness. Kerim, the young Kurd who looked after him, fed him
well on kebabs and other local fare and, most memorable of all, breakfasts of
preserved apricots, mast (smoky yoghurt), cornflakes and wild honey. It was a
noisy house, surrounded by dogs, cats, small boys and donkeys. There was a small
mosque, and storks on nearby roofs snapped their beaks all day, making a
clattering sound that gave them the nickname ‘lag-lag’. On the veranda, in the
vine surrounding Macpherson’s bed, hundreds of sparrows with piercing voices
made sleep impossible after dawn.
The Kurdish tribesmen who assisted the survey parties were fierce yet intensely
loyal. My father was accompanied by Kurds as guides, chain men,
sample collectors and assistants. On one occasion, a tribesman appeared from
behind a rock, demanding, ‘Your money or your life!’ Omar, a Kurd in the
geological team and an ex-British army paratrooper, explained vehemently to the
highwayman that the geologists were his guests and eventually the man let them
pass safely. After they had passed by, Omar said, ‘That man has insulted my
nation, wait here, I am going back to kill him.’ He was eventually persuaded
otherwise.
A Case of Kidnapping
In July 1961 the Iraqi leader, General Abdul al-Karim Qasim,
ordered his troops to begin military maneuvers against the Kurds, an action that
precipitated a fullblown Kurdish revolt. Since most of the developed Iraqi
oilfields were in the north, a cry went up that the Kurdish troubles ‘smelt of
oil’. One Baghdad newspaper reported that the government had found rebel maps
printed with help from ‘imperialistic quarters’, and letters in English that the
Kurdish leader, Mullah Mustafa al-Barzani, had written to British subjects.
Mustafa had gone into hiding, the newspaper claimed.
In 1961, the rebels known as the Peshmerga raided an IPC exploration drilling
camp at Taq Taq. They left the expatriates unharmed but the company suspended
drilling operations and abandoned the well when Qasim confiscated the
non-producing areas. In October 1962, the Peshmerga raided Ain Zalah and took a
drilling superintendent prisoner. After a long walk to the Iranian border, they
released him.
These troubles would have particular significance for one IPC
employee. Frank Gosling had started with the company in the Geological Research
Department in London in 1952 and transferred to Kirkuk in 1956. Here he worked
on exploration wells and field surveys mostly in the Kurdish mountains. One day
in November 1962, he phoned his wife, Pauline, to say that he was going to be
late for lunch. He was showing an Iraqi geologist, Adnan Samarrai, the geology
of an area some ten miles north-west of Kirkuk. Traveling in two Land Rovers,
the party of five arrived at a spot in the Qarah Chauq hills and the two
geologists began their inspection. Then four armed Kurdish tribesmen appeared.
Initially, the atmosphere was tense – one of their drivers was convinced that
the Kurds were going to kill them all. However, after some discussion, the Kurds
decided to release the men at sunset and slip away.
But then they changed their minds. Thus began a lengthy trek
through the mountains, arriving at the village of Bettwahta where they were
held for four long weeks. This was a large village tucked under a large
precipitous limestone cliff with caves at its base, providing the rebels with
shelter from overflying Iraqi MIGs. The leader of the Kurds, Barzani, eventually
arrived at the village to discuss Gosling’s release. He was described as a
‘fierce walnut-colored man of 59, with straight black eyebrows that almost met
across an eagle’s bill of a nose; a rough, obstinate old warrior’. After a long
discussion, Barzani agreed that Gosling could leave, but via Iran, since the
authorities in Kirkuk might accuse him of spying for the Kurds if he returned to
Iraq.
Winter had arrived – the weather was cold with rain and sleety
showers and icy water rushed down the mountain streams – and the next stage of
the journey was hard. Presently, after setbacks and sickness, Gosling
passed across the border into Iran, thence taken by train to Tehran. He arrived
back in London on January 9, 1963, almost three months after his capture.
Kurdistan Today
In 1972, the Iraqi government nationalized IPC’s assets,
effectively ending the concession. In 2013, however, a number of different oil
companies had 24 drilling rigs in Kurdistan and this year there will be 40, with
production expected to reach 250,000 bopd. A new pipeline to ship oil from
Kurdistan to Turkey has opened, although it is opposed by the federal government
in Baghdad, indicating that tensions between the regional and federal
governments have not been resolved.