SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdistan Region Presidency said on Thursday that it would make efforts to defend the rights and entitlements of the Kurdistan Region’s people, hours after the Iraqi parliament adopted a loan bill without Kurds’ consent.
In a statement, the Region’s presidency said the Iraqi parliament had approved the fiscal deficit financing bill without taking into account the principles of partnership, consensus and balance.
“The Kurdistan Region is looking with concern and utmost attention to this issue and will make every effort to defend the rights and entitlements of the people of Kurdistan,” the Region’s presidency said.
It further said the presidencies including the Region’s presidency, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Kurdistan Parliament as well as Kurdish lawmakers in Baghdad would meet to discuss the issue.
The Iraqi parliament held a session early on Thursday to vote on the fiscal deficit financing bill, which allows the federal government to borrow 12 trillion Iraqi dinars ($10 billion) in internal and external loans in order to pay salaries of public servants. The loan was decreased from 42 trillion Iraqi dinars.
Kurdish lawmakers walked out of the session due to their concern about the Kurdistan Region’s share set in the fiscal deficit financing bill.
The bill was adopted by a majority vote of the Shia and Sunni lawmakers at dawn.
Kurdish lawmaker Ahmed Haji Rashid said in a post to its official Facebook page that Shia blocs in the Iraqi parliament had told the Kurdish MPs that the federal government had transferred budget to the Region for over two years, but the Region had not exported its oil through Baghdad.
“We had been sending money [to the Region] without sending a barrel of oil [to Baghdad] and we had been showing good wills for two years,” Haji Rashid cited the Shia blocs as saying. “There will be no money without oil. There is an election ahead of us and our people will not accept it.”
The fiscal deficit financing law commits the Kurdistan Region to hand over non-oil revenues and an amount of oil that SOMO indicates to the federal government in exchange for an amount of money as payment for the Region’s public servants.
Earlier on Thursday, head of the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party called on the Kurdish lawmakers to leave Baghdad and proposed that the Region stop calling for budget from Baghdad and reorganize revenue and distribute salaries every 30 days.
MP Sarkawt Shamsadin said in a tweet that it was not “acceptable” to deal of rights through majority-minority votes.
“KRG is a burden but financial rights of people of Kurdistan is responsibility of Iraqi Gov.,” he said.
