“We have the budget law. Go read Article 12 and the other Articles relating to the [Kurdistan] Region, there is no such thing called financing payroll. There is only financing the Kurdistan Region’s share which is 12.67 percent” Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani said during a televised sit-down with journalists in Baghdad, stressing “this is clear in the budget.”
Delegations of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi federal government have held talks in recent months, aimed at resolving the lingering issues relating to the Region’s share in the federal budget.
Last week, Baghdad said it would send Erbil 500 billion Iraqi dinars (close to $382 million) as part of a “loan agreement” to cover the salaries of Erbil’s public servants. The KRG has repetedly slammed Baghdad, saying that the amount provided is not enough to meet the needs of the Region.
Sudani said that the Iraqi government has no authority to go against the Articles of the budget, but can provide loans to the KRG so it can continue providing the salaries of its public servants.
“We are committed to our obligations towards our people in the Kurdistan Region… But it needs an atmosphere of trust and dialogue, instead of statements, declarations, and accusations,” he added.
The KRG has failed to pay its civil servants on time and in full for several years due to the financial crisis. Public sector employees have not been paid for the months of July and August following several failed deals with Baghdad.
All parties agreed to hand over offices in Kirkuk
The Iraqi prime minister said that that the recent escalations in Kirkuk were the product of political tensions which have been brewing in the province for years, noting that the province suffers from a political issue, not security.
Tensions escalated in Kirkuk on September 2 after Arab and Turkmen demonstrators staged a sit-in near the headquarters of the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command (JOC), located on the main Kirkuk-Erbil road in what used to be an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), angry that Sudani had ordered Iraqi forces to evacuate the headquarters and two other buildings to allow the KDP to return to its offices.
As the city’s disgruntled Kurdish majority staged a counter-protest, Iraqi security forces opened fire and killed at least four Kurdish protesters.
Sudani told the journalists that the KDP’s return to its offices in Kirkuk has been part of the ministerial agenda since the formation of the government back in October last year, and this has been agreed upon by all the political parties.
“The political parties agreed in the ministerial agenda to an item titled ‘handing over the political party offices in the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Diyala.’ All the political parties agreed to this without an exception. This is not a governmental measure, but rather an implementation of the agenda and what has been agreed upon,” said Sudani.
The Iraqi premier stressed that it was the responsibility of all Iraqis to protect Kirkuk’s label as the city of “brotherhood” and “coexistence”, adding that December’s provincial council elections will act as the pathway towards resolving the province’s outstanding issues.
Hours after the violence in Kirkuk, Sudani ordered the formation of an investigative committee into the deaths and injuries at the protests, vowing to bring the “negligent ones” to justice on account of the violence that transpired. The Iraqi PM said during his meeting with the journalists that several suspects have already been arrested and that the findings of the investigations will be announced shortly.
Seeking a radical solution for the water crisis
Iraq is facing a severe water shortage because of reduced precipitation, higher temperatures, and waste and mismanagement. The crisis is worsened by upstream dams in Turkey and Iran that have led to a significant decrease in the volume of water entering the country.
“Today we are before a global crisis of water scarcity facing Iraq and the region due to a lack of rain, desertification, and global warming and climate change, which have greatly affected the availability of water,” stated the Iraqi PM.
Sudani said that the current and previous Iraqi governments have so far only pursued “temporary” mechanisms to combat the water crisis, but stressed that his cabinet is currently working on presenting a “strategic” plan to resolve “all aspects” of the crisis from the root.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk on Monday used Iraq as an example of the “environmental horror” the planet is facing, adding that Iraq was encountering a “human rights emergency” as the global climate change crisis worsens.
Iraq no longer in need of foreign forces
The Iraqi premier said that the recent visit of an Iraqi security delegation was “very successful” and resulted in operations targeting several “important” bases of the Islamic State (ISIS) in the country, but stressed that Iraq was no longer in need for foreign combat forces on its soil.
“We do not need any [foreign] combat forces in Iraq. The global coalition was formed in 2014 to combat ISIS. ISIS is done,” said Sudani.
He added that Baghdad will remain a part of any global effort to combat ISIS remnants, but stressed that the presence of the coalition forces was a topic that was in need of reevaluation.
An Iraqi security delegation and a US Department of Defense delegation held the inaugural US-Iraq Joint Security Cooperation Dialogue in Washington, D.C. in August, reiterating that US forces remain in Iraq in an advisory, non-combat role, and upon the invitation of the Iraqi government, to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS.
The delegations expressed their intent to consult on how the US-led global coalition’s role should evolve in the future based on the threat from ISIS and the Iraqi security force’s capability levels, and committed to forming a joint commission to handle that process.
The global coalition against ISIS was formally established in October 2014, after ISIS took control of vast swathes of territories in Iraq and Syria. Consisting of 79 nations and five international organizations, the US-led coalition seeks to ensure ISIS’ “enduring defeat.”
