ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Iraq’s Oil Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi returned to Baghdad Friday evening after two days of talks with Kurdish officials over oil and budget disputes with the Kurdish government.
A government official from Baghdad told Rudaw on condition of anonymity that Abdul Mahdi and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had a series of positive meetings, but that Abdul Mahdi returned without reaching a deal.
Abdul Mahdi arrived in Erbil on Wednesday to meet with Kurdish government officials, among them President Massoud Barzani in an effort to save an oil and budget deal that was signed between Baghdad and Erbil last December.
KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said this week that Erbil has honored the December deal and exported 550,000 barrels of oil per day to the Turkish port of Ceyhan as stipulated in the deal.
However, said PM Barzani, Baghdad is not committed to the deal that would require the central government to send Erbil its full 17 percent share of the national budget.
In return for exporting 550,000 barrels of oil from Kurdistan and Kirkuk oilfields KRG is to receive 1.2 trillion Iraqi Dinars. But Kurdish officials say that Baghdad has given them only 488 billion IQD.
The KRG also said that it handed over to Iraq's State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) 16.7 million barrels of oil at the port of Ceyhan in April.
In response to Iraq’s violation of the agreement, PM Barzani met with the Kurdish members of the Iraqi parliament in Erbil on Wednesday and following the meeting they agreed to give Baghdad another chance.
For his part, Iraqi premier Haider al-Abadi said that his government was committed to the December agreement and he sent his Oil Minister Abdul Mahdi to Erbil for talks.
