ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A “senior and important” Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation is to head to Baghdad by next week to resolve any outstanding issues there may be in the 2021 Iraqi budget draft, Iraq’s finance minister told Rudaw on Monday. The delegation from Erbil is to arrive in Baghdad "either this week or next week” to "discuss outstanding issues in a transparent manner", finance minister Ali Allawi said. Allawi did not say who would be part of the delegation. A lower-level KRG delegation, including deputy planning minister Zagros Fatah and head of the finance ministry's budget department Parikhan Nuri, arrived in Baghdad on Sunday to participate in 2021 budget draft preparations. Ahmed Safar, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament told Rudaw on Sunday that the ongoing visit is the first time KRG representatives are taking part in the drafting of Iraq's annual budget. "Kurds are taking part in the preparation of the 2021 draft budget. The KRG delegates are working in coordination with the Iraqi finance ministry to prepare the draft. This is a great step forward," Safar said. The current visit comes just over a week after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he had urged the Iraqi federal government to “clinch a budget deal” with the KRG. Pompeo's comment followed KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's announcement earlier this month that they had reached a temporary deal, in which Baghdad will send 320 billion dinars ($270 million) monthly to Erbil for the KRG to pay its civil servants. The KRG's share of the Iraqi federal budget is a chronic point of contention between Erbil and Baghdad. The Kurdistan Region is heavily dependent on its share of the Iraqi budget, and Kurdish officials have said they cannot pay civil servants without what it says is its fair share of federal government money. Erbil says it is entitled to its 12.67% share of federal funds, as stipulated by Iraq’s 2019 budget law, while Baghdad says the KRG has not lived up to its end of the deal that includes turning over 250,000 barrels of oil daily to Iraq’s State Organization for the Marketing of Oil (SOMO), a state-owned oil company. Before the August agreement between premiers Barzani and Kadhimi, Baghdad had not sent funds since April, worsening the KRG's failure to pay complete and full public sector employee salaries this year. KRG public sector employees have taken to the streets over delays in salary payments. Demonstrations and strikes calling on the KRG's current cabinet to resign have occurred several times in Sulaimani province, while protests by teachers in May over delayed pay in Duhok were shut down.
