SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Bashir Hadad discussed financial entitlements of the Kurdistan Region during a meeting on Thursday.
Hadad, who is a Kurd, told reporters following his meeting with Kadhimi that the prime minister wanted to make a consensus between the parties so as to send 320 billion Iraqi dinars to Erbil.
In August, Kadhimi told the Kurdistan Region prime minister in a telephone call that the federal government would transfer 320 billion Iraqi dinars to the Kurdistan Region as payment for the Region’s employees until the end of the year.
“Kadhimi has admitted that the Kurdistan Region faces oppression,” Hadad said, noting that the Iraqi premier had said “the amount of money which we send to the Kurdistan Region is lesser than their rights, and we need to increase it”.
“But some people inside and outside the parliament make obstacle for it, and we are in talks with the parties to solve the issues and to send the amount which has not been sent to the Kurdistan Region,” Hadad cited Kadhimi as saying during the meeting.
Relations between Baghdad and Erbil soared after the Iraqi parliament adopted the draft fiscal deficit financing law on Nov. 12 without Kurds’ consent.
Kurdish lawmakers walked out of the parliament’s session due to their concern about the Kurdistan Region’s share set in the law.
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.
On Wednesday, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said it would send an official request to the federal government for the Kurdistan Region’s budget shares for the months of May, June, July and October of this year.
“Any delays in providing the Kurdistan’s fair share of the federal budget constitutes a violation of the rights of the people of the Kurdistan Region,” KRG Premier Masrour Barzani said.
In April, the federal government, led by former prime minister Adil Abdul Mahdi, cut off all budget transfers to the Kurdistan Region due to the KRG’s failure to export 250,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) through Baghdad.
In November 2019, Erbil and Baghdad reached a deal to resolve their ongoing disagreement over oil, after Erbil agreed to export 250,000 bpd through Baghdad to Turkey’s Ceyhan port in exchange for the Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget.
