SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said on Thursday a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation will pay a visit to Baghdad in the near future for talks on the federal budget for 2021.
Talabani met with U.N. Envoy to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert in Erbil to discuss the current situation in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region as well as relations between Baghdad and Erbil, his office said in a statement.
Talabani expressed the KRG’s readiness to commit to the federal budget law, his office said in a statement.
“In the near future, we will visit Baghdad in this regard,” Talabani said during the meeting.
Both sides also agreed on a “healthy and better relationship” between the Region and Baghdad, according to the statement.
The Iraqi parliament approved the federal budget of 130 trillion Iraqi dinars ($89.65 billion) on March 31.
After months of wrangling, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the central government reached an agreement on thorny issues, including oil and non-oil revenues.
Under the 2021 budget law, the Kurdistan Region will be committed to produce 460,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).
After deducting expenses for production operations in the Region, transport of oil and the domestic consumption of crude oil, the KRG must hand over to Baghdad revenues generated from regional oil exports of 250,000 bpd, according to Iraq’s SOMO pricing, as well as 50 percent of non-oil revenue.
The Kurdistan Region, in return, will receive its share of the budget.
Regarding Iraq’s elections, Talabani and Hennis-Plasschaert agreed that the process of elections should be “clean” and that the United Nations should play its role in observing the process, the statement said.
Iraq is scheduled to hold early parliamentary elections on October 10.
Discussing the process of reform, Talabani said the KRG was continuing with reforms in the various sectors, stressing that the international community should help the Kurdistan Region so that it will be on the “right path for reform, expanding freedoms and embodying democratic values”, according to the statement.
Earlier on Thursday, Hennis-Plasschaert held talks with Prime Minister Masrour Barzani in Erbil. They discussed the political situation in the Region and Iraq, including relations between Erbil and Baghdad.
