Baghdad - The Iraqi Ministry for Oil has rejected the agreement signed by the German company RWE with the government of the autonomous region of Kurdistan on gas exploitation, to feed the future Nabucco gas pipeline. "Any contract or agreement signed outside the legal framework and hence without approval from the SOMO (State Oil Marketing Organization), is illegal", said the Ministry's spokesman Asim Jihad. SOMO is the only body authorised to approve the signing of contracts for the exploitation of Iraqi oil and gas fields. "No one apart from the ministry has the right to sign contracts for the exporting of oil or gas", read the statement. Last Friday RWE had signed an agreement with the Kurdish government that involved German funding to develop transport infrastructures and gas exports. RWE had announced that the Minister for Natural Resources for the autonomous region, Ashti Hawrami, had guaranteed over 20 billion cubic metres of gas a year for the Nabucco pipeline, which has an estimated capacity of 31 billion cubic metres, to transport gas from the Caspian to Turkey and Europe without crossing Russia. The Russian colossus Gazprom answered the challenge by launching its own project with the South Stream pipeline that after 2013 will transport gas to Italy and Greece passing under the Black Sea and avoiding the Ukraine.