Q&A: Ashti Hawrami

ERBIL - As Kurdistan's minister of natural resources, Ashti Hawrami has served as the architect of the semi-autonomous region's oil strategy.

He negotiated the terms of a January 2011 agreement with his counterpart in the federal Oil Ministry, Abdul Karim Luaibi, which allowed Kurdistan to re-start its exports through Iraq's northern pipeline; and he cut those exports 14 months later, after concluding that Baghdad was not planning to send payments for Kurdistan's contractors.