SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Ten Kurdish lawmakers rejected to participate in a meeting of senior officials from the Kurdistan Region regarding a loan bill approved by the Iraqi parliament without Kurds’ consent.
In a statement on Saturday, ten members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives said they did not see meeting important as they accuse Baghdad and Erbil of the crises in the country.
The lawmakers include Ahmed Haji Rashid, Rebwar Karim Mahmoud, Kawa Mohammed, Sarkawt Shamsadin, Srwa Wnis, Yusra Rajab, Ghalib Mohammed Ali, Bahar Mahmoud Fatah, Hoshyar Abdulla and Musanna Amin.
“The issues of payment and oil is clear and does not need meeting,” the lawmakers said.
“There is still opportunity for the Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG] to send a delegation to Baghdad to reach a new, broad, transparent and concrete agreement with Baghdad on the basis of constitution, not on the personal or political relations.”
“The Region’s authorities want these meetings as a political parade so as to legitimize their failed policy. We are not ready to be part of that policy … It is better for the KRG to work to provide salaries for the public servants,” they added.
“So far, there is no real reform and stealing wealth and revenues continue. Despite that, there are dozens of activists and journalists in the prisons in Erbil, Duhok and other areas.”
The Kurdistan Region Presidency, KRG and Kurdistan Parliament are scheduled to hold a meeting on Sunday with Kurdish lawmakers in Baghdad to discuss parliament’s voting on fiscal deficit financing bill.
The Iraqi parliament voted early on Thursday to approve 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.
The 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.
Most of the Kurdish lawmakers walked out of the parliament’s session in protest of the bill.
The KRG expressed concerns and signaled opposition to the voting on the bill, said it had consistently worked to find a “peaceful” resolution to the issues between Erbil and Baghdad on the basis of Iraqi constitution.
On Friday, four Iraqi lawmakers accused the federal government and the KRG of causing the economic crisis in the country, calling for the solution of Baghdad-Erbil issues.
“The fiscal deficit financing law is not enough to resolve the financial crisis in Iraq, and that it is not the only solution,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.
“The government and all the institutions to take measures to do speedy reform in order to tackle the crises,” they added.
