Baghdad continues to hold back Kurdish budget, situation intolerable Barzani warns

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—In a meeting with members of the press on Monday Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said that Erbil would do its best to resolve its budget dispute with Baghdad but that patience is also running out.

“We want to be in agreement with Baghdad and we want the people of Kurdistan, the US and other countries to know that we have done our best with Baghdad,” said PM Barzani. “But it also must be clear that we can no longer tolerate this situation.”

Barzani who recently met with his Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad over the Kurdish share of Iraq’s budget, said: “Unfortunately Baghdad is acting like an oil company towards a part of the country not like a state,”

Barzani said that Abadi had told him in Baghdad that his hands were tied by the Shiite alliance.

A meeting between a Kurdish delegation led by PM Barzani with Abadi and other Iraqi ministers earlier this month ended in impasse.

“Baghdad is telling us that we have exported more oil than it is in the agreement and that is true,” said Barzani. “But we had told Abadi in our first meeting that we had received cash advances for our people’s salaries from companies in return for oil.”

Erbil and Baghdad signed an agreement last year whereby Erbil would contribute to the federal budget by selling 550,000 barrels of oil for Baghdad daily.

“We had told Baghdad back then that even if we export one billion barrels a day we could only give them 550,000 barrels because we owed the companies money, “ that need to be paid back.

Baghdad cut off Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget January last year and this has placed severe strain on the Kurdish government that is at war with the Islamic State (ISIS) and received 1.4 million refuges from the rest of Iraq.

The Kurdish prime minister said that on his visit to Turkey last week he borrowed $500 million to help pay government salaries.

Barzani said that the Kurds are willing to run another round of negotiations with Baghdad to resolve the disputes and that he has tasked Roj Nuri Shaways—Abadi’s deputy—and Kurdish MPs in Baghdad to talk with Abadi and members of the Shiite alliance.