ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Prime Minister Haidar Abadi defended his recent agreement with the Kurdistan Region as his cabinet approved a draft 2015 budget worth 123 trillion dinars (about $103 billion) on Tuesday.
The budget is seen as a direct outcome of the stabilizing relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the oil pact Baghdad and Erbil have signed.
“The agreement on budget and oil exports from Kurdistan Region and Kirkuk is a victory for Kurds and Arabs in Iraq and we are ready to push aside our differences,” Abadi said in an interview with the Mada daily Tuesday.
He praised the role of the Peshmerga forces and described their achievements as a “success for all Iraqis.”
Iraq had no budget in 2014 due to Baghdad’s deepening differences with both Sunnis and Kurds, as the then prime minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to pay the KRG’s share of the monthly budget for more than 10 consecutive months.
According to the agreement between the KRG and Iraqi government, Erbil will export 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) in return for the Kurdistan Region’s 17 percent share of the Iraqi budget, or roughly $1 billion every month.
Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani has praised Abadi and said many “serious issues” have been resolved since the new premier took office in August.
“The first thing Abadi did was the cancellation of the office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. That was a very good step. After that he opened up to the Kurds and Sunnis and Shiites. The man took good steps. Previously, there was discrimination,” Barzani told Al Arabiya TV in an interview last week.
