ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) spokesperson Peshawa Hawramani on Wednesday said that the United States’ support for the Kurdistan Region is more expansive than in the past, dubbing it an “official stance” that is no longer restricted to individual US lawmakers.

Ties between the Kurdistan Region and the United States saw significant development earlier in May following a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani that saw the signing of a number of deals between the two sides for a combined value of around 110 billion US dollars. The agreements with American firms are aimed at bolstering the Region’s energy sector by developing oil and gas fields.

“The [US] solidarity and support for the Kurdistan Region is bigger than the opinion of a single senator or a congressman this time around; it is an official stance, as you just read what the State Department spokesperson said,” KRG spokesperson Hawramani said, referring to recent remarks by US State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce in support of the Kurdistan Region, after multiple sources reported that the Iraqi oil ministry had moved to sue the KRG over the deals.

“As far as the nature of the lawsuits…. Obviously, we are looking forward to continuing these kinds of deals. We expect these kinds of deals to flourish, and expect and would hope that they would be facilitated,” Bruce told reporters on Tuesday.

“These types of economic partnerships will benefit both the American and Iraqi peoples and help Iraq move toward energy independence,” Bruce said, adding that “The United States supports economic deals that benefit all Iraqis, including the two announced last week.”

Hawramani noted that Barzani has time and again stressed that Erbil and Baghdad need to address their differences “within the framework of the [Iraqi] constitution.” The spokesperson quoted the prime minister as saying that they have “opened every door for solutions” and, in return, asked for guarantees to ensure that their people “will not be oppressed.”

Washington has underscored the importance of the deals time and again in helping Iraq alleviate its reliance on Iranian gas, which currently supplies Baghdad with more than a quarter of the fuel that Iraq’s power grid demands.