BASRA, Iraq (AFP) – Plans to hold an autonomy referendum for the southern region of Basra aim to ensure that Iraq's economic nerve centre benefits from its oil wealth, the initiator of the referendum said on Monday.

""We believe that oil and gas belong to the Iraqi people, to all the Iraqi people,"" Wael Abdul Latif, an independent MP and former magistrate, told AFP.
""We are simply asking to be remunerated for the oil installations on our territory and to have a share of the profits of the oil exports which pass through our ports,"" he said.
Basra province accounts for 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of the revenues generated by Iraq's overall production of 2.5 million bpd, while its ports provide the country's sole sea outlet for oil exports.
Abdul Latif said the aim was different from the Kurds in northern Iraq and not designed to control Basra's oil riches.
""If we manage to create an autonomous region, it will not have the same type of relations with the central government as those of the Kurds. Oil contracts will be the responsibility of the federal state and not the Basra region.""
Over the past year, the Kurdish regional government has angered Baghdad by finalising its own energy law and signing contracts with global oil majors despite the absence of national oil legislation.
A national energy law has been delayed in parliament over bitter differences among the assembly's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers over the sharing of the revenues generated from oil sales.
On Sunday, Iraq's independent electoral commission announced plans to collect signatures in support of a referendum to transform Basra into an autonomous region.
Signatures would be collected from December 15 to January 14 in 34 centres across the predominantly Shiite province, the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said.
According to the IHEC, there are 1,409,393 eligible voters in the province of Basra which includes the port city of Basra.
""If after the certification of the signature collection process the signature list reaches the required 10 percent of the 'Final Voters List', a referendum will be held within three months,"" the statement said.
If the referendum is organized and accepted, it will transform Basra into an autonomous region with the same rights as Iraqi Kurdistan, which also has considerable oil wealth.