By Aland Mahwi
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The representative offices of the Kurdistan region abroad will directly ask host countries for financial and military aid, to help Erbil cope with a sea of refugees and an ongoing war with ISIS, amid a dramatic decline in oil prices over the past year.
“We have been instructed (by Erbil) to ask all the countries where we have offices for both military and financial assistance,” the Kurdistan Regional Government´s (KRG) representative to Iran, Nazim Dabagh, told Rudaw.
Dabagh said the falling oil revenues, coupled with the refugee crisis, had severely impacted the KRG budget, which is likely to shrink even further during 2016.
One Kurdish official told Rudaw Friday that the KRG would stop exporting oil if the prices dropped below $15.
“We will not just ask for ammunition and guns but also for economic means for the Peshmerga who need to support their own families as well,” Dabagh added.
Around 100,000 Peshmerga soldiers are patrolling the 1,300-kilometer long border area against ISIS, at a monthly cost of around $300 million, the KRG has said.
A Kurdish delegation visited Washington earlier this month to call on US officials to assist Kurdistan through the dire economic crisis that has hit the country.
Similar meetings have taken place in the UK, where KRG representatives have had meetings with the UK Foreign Office.
The KRG has 14 offices abroad, including in Moscow, Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, Washington and a range of other capitals.
