"There is data from the oil ministry that the Kurdistan Region exported 550,000 bpd through the Ceyhan port in October.” Abadi claimed in his weekly televised address. “This is a huge amount of money. Where does it go?"
"As you know oil exports have not stopped until now. The pipeline extended [to Turkey] through the Kurdistan Region is still under the authority of the Kurdistan Region," Abadi claimed.
Kurdish authorities rejected these claims by Abadi on the grounds that the Region lost control of Kirkuk and other oilfields on October 16, which provided at least 300,000 barrels of the daily output.
The Iraqi prime minister said that despite promises from Kurdish authorities to hand over their oil to the central government no such thing has happened yet.
"Though I have heard from Kurdistan Region authorities that they would hand over oil to Baghdad, they have not done it until now," Abadi said.
KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said on Monday that his government was ready to hand over the Region's oil in return for its 17 percent share of Iraq’s federal annual budget.
Abadi went on to say that his government was giving enough oil on a daily basis to be refined in local refineries for domestic use.
The Iraqi premier said that Baghdad was willing to pay salaries of civil servants in the Kurdistan Region but only after a careful audit of the number of employees.
Kurdish officials have also denounced remarks by Abadi and other Iraqi leaders regarding dealing with Kurdish provinces individually and sidestepping the KRG.
Hiwa Zangana, the representative of teacher demonstrators, told Rudaw that they demand their grievances for payment be met, but that does not mean they want to be paid directly by Baghdad.
“We have not asked for our payments to not be given to the KRG, but we asked for the improving of our salaries and the call was directly to the KRG, as it is their duty to tackle this issue since we are associated with the KRG not Baghdad," Zangana said.
Abadi said that KRG’s demand for 17 percent of the 2018 Iraqi budget was "unjust" but Kurdish authorities insist that it is something nonnegotiable as it is entrenched in the Iraqi constitution of 2005 and unless a census decides the true number of Iraq’s population, budgetary agreements should remain as they are.
