SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraqi Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Hassan Kaabi said any agreement with the Kurdistan Region which is incompatible with the loan law will be “void”.
“Any agreement about Kurdistan’s oil and its revenue which is repugnant to the provisions of the fiscal deficit financing law will be considered void,” Kaabi said on Saturday (December 12).
His remarks came after a delegation from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraqi parliament’s financial committee held a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi in Baghdad on Saturday.
Kadhimi’s office said in a statement that the officials discussed mechanisms for the implementation of the fiscal deficit financing law, also known as the loan law.
The law, adopted by the Iraqi parliament last month, without Kurds consent, 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.
Lawmaker Hoshyar Abdulla said the Kurdish delegation had showed readiness to abide by the loan law in exchange for the Region’s financial entitlements for the last months of 2020.
“The meeting between the Iraqi parliament’s financial delegation and the KRG delegation was positive,” Abdulla added.
The Region’s delegation visited Baghdad on Wednesday to show the Kurdistan Region’s readiness to abide by the loan law, and to reach a deal with Baghdad regarding the Region’s share of the federal budget law for 2021.
Iraqi President Barham Salih met with Kadhimi, Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi and Oil Minister Ihsan Abduljabbar in Baghdad on Friday night.
Esta Media Network has learned that the four officials discussed an agreement between the Kurdistan Region and the federal government.
