Kurdistan
A PDK meeting with Komal and the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party on January 17, 2021. Photo: Rudaw / screenshot
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) politburo met with other parties in the region on Sunday to discuss forming a delegation to visit Baghdad in order to resolve ongoing political and budget disputes.
“We didn’t make a decision on when or how we will visit, but all of them liked the suggestion, because we all agreed that if all Kurds are unified, we will be stronger whether here or in Baghdad,” KDP politburo member Amin Najar said in a press conference.
A KDP delegation visited Kurdistan Region’s political parties, including the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal), who have previously refused to join the delegation to visit Baghdad. There had been numerous attempts to form the delegation, mainly by the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
“The situation in Baghdad might be different, we had a problem with the government before...but Kurds are so dangerous in Baghdad now, that any party who gets close to Kurds loses votes,”, Mohammed Haji Mahmoud, a member of the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party told Rudaw’s Arkan Ali on Sunday.
“In the next two days we will resume meetings with the parties in Erbil,” including all the minority parties within and outside of parliament, KDP politburo member Ali Hussein told Rudaw on Sunday.
The Kurdistan Region’s allocation of the federal budget has long been a point of contention with Baghdad. Iraq didn’t send the autonomous region money for several months of 2020 amid oil disputes, preventing the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) from paying the salaries of its public servants.
The already-existing budget dispute between the two governments was further complicated on November 12 when Iraqi MPs passed the Fiscal Deficit Coverage Bill to approve loans for civil servant salaries in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region for the last two months of this year.
The bill passed with a majority vote, despite a walk-out staged by Kurdish MPs, who were angered that Erbil is obliged to hand over an unspecified amount of oil in exchange for funds- a clause they say was not in the original bill.
On December 22, Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani announced Erbil and Baghdad had reached a deal on Iraq’s Federal Budget Bill for 2021 that “keeps the common interest of all Iraqi people, including the people of Kurdistan Region” following weeks of disputes after Kurdish MPs walked out of a session on a deficit bill requiring Erbil to hand over an unspecified amount of oil in exchange for funds.
Islamic parties have previously expressed their opposition to joining the delegation.
“The government should either have an alternative to resolve the civil servant salaries issue, and we think they don’t, otherwise they would have presented it, or we should reach an agreement with Baghdad. A political party delegation, in our opinion, doesn’t serve anything,” Mustafa Abdullah, a member of the KIU Executive Council told Arkan Ali on January 4.
“This is not the parties’ responsibility,” Shwan Rabar, member of Komal’s leadership added.
“The Kurdish parties should visit Baghdad unified to be able to have a program, but unfortunately these are just media talks and in reality, there is no unification of Kurds. The Iraqi parties have taken advantage of that gap,” Rabiha Mohammed Abdullah, head of the PUK’s office in Baghdad told Rudaw’s Halkawt Aziz on January 12.
Mohammed Shakir, a KDP MP in the Kurdistan Region Parliament said on January 12 that forming a delegation is “important” for talks, “especially the Shiite factions to pass the budget bill the way it is,” adding that the budget issues with Baghdad are neither legal nor constitutional, but rather political.
On January 16, PUK co-leader Lahur Talabany said they had met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to discuss the latest developments, and “reiterated that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan supports the legal provisions of the 2021 Iraqi federal budget related to the Kurdish share of the draft budget, for the sake of our people’s livelihood and to guarantee the Kurdistan Region’s public sector’s salaries.”
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