ERBIL, (UPI) -- Plans for Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish enclave to build an oil pipeline to Turkey points to a major
political and economic realignment in the Middle East that will impact heavily on Iraq.

The country stands to lose a region believed to contain 45 billion barrels of oil and as much as 211 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The unilateral move by the Kurdistan Regional Government in the northern city of Irbil, the Kurdish capital, will deepen the strains between Kurds and the Baghdad government.

These will intensify concerns that Iraq's Kurds, who rule three northern provinces, are taking another step toward the independence they have long sought.

Further, such a step will encourage other regions, particularly oil-rich Basra province in the south, to demand more autonomy.

Pressure for this, largely frombillion barrels and Baghdad refuses to surrender them to the Kurds, who want them to be the economic core of an independent homeland.

Twin pipelines run north from Kirkuk to Turkey's terminal on the eastern Mediterranean at Ceyhan.

The new pipeline now being proposed from landlocked Kurdistan to Turkey would run directly to Turkey without going through territory controlled by Baghdad.

The plans for the new pipeline, capable of pumping 1 million barrels per day, were unveiled in Irbil Sunday by the KRG's natural resources minister, Ashti Hawrami, during a visit by Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz.

Baghdad warned the KRG that all oil deals must have the approval of the central government and that Irbil's unilateral move is thus illegal.

The KRG argues that under the constitution drawn up after Saddam Hussein's