Iraq's Prime Minister answers hard-hitting questions with Rudaw

Rudaw’s Bestoon Othman hosted Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on the Bestoon Talk show in Baghdad, discussing a wide range of topics in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region including the formation of the Iraqi government, Erbil-Baghdad issues, issues with resuming exports of Kurdish oil, attacks on US interests in Iraq and the Region, water and climate issues, as well as the aftermath of the war against the Islamic State (ISIS).

The following are key topics from the conversation:

Written by Julian Bechocha

Need to identify opportunities to solve Baghdad-Erbil issues

Sudani stressed the need to refrain from labeling problems between Baghdad and Erbil as “outstanding” and rather focus on opportunities that can bring the two governments together.
 
“It is time to lift the term of the outstanding problems between Baghdad and Erbil, and move to the many future opportunities that bring together all parts of this country,” he said.
 
One of the pressing issues between Erbil and Baghdad is the fate of the Kurdistan Region’s share in the federal budget. The Region has relied on irregular payments from the Iraqi government to pay its civil servants since an arbitration case between Baghdad and Ankara in March halted the flow of Kurdish oil exports to the international markets. 

Meetings between delegations of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal government have been ongoing over the past months, aimed at resolving lingering disputes over the Region’s share in the federal budget.

The prime minister extended praise to the Kurdish blocs in the Iraqi parliament for the successful formation of the Iraqi government in October of last year, describing them as an “essential part” of the process.
 
“The Kurdistan Alliance, with all its various forces, is an essential part of the State Administration Coalition that formed the government, and is an essential partner in the political process that has taken place since 2003,” he said.

The State Administration Coalition is an alliance of Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish political parties in Iraq that successfully broke the political deadlock that suffocated the country and left it without a government for over a year.
 
Sudani, the candidate of the Iran-backed Coordination Framework, was selected to form the new Iraqi government on October 13 after over a year of tense political deadlock and infighting between pro-Iran factions and prominent Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s loyalists. 

Salary delays, economic woes in the Kurdistan Region
 
Regarding the ongoing issues between Baghdad and Erbil, Sudani affirmed that the Iraqi Council of Ministers has an “understanding and keenness” to implement the government program in a way that does not harm the Kurdistan Region’s citizens.
 
“There are many media outlets trying to falsify and shade the facts as if the federal government in Baghdad does not feel the legal, constitutional, and moral responsibility for the citizens [of the Kurdistan Region],” Sudani said.

The KRG has failed to pay its civil servants on time and in full for several years due to the financial crisis. The latest 700 billion dinar installment of the loan from Baghdad will cover the salaries for September.

Baghdad’s sending of the final payment has sparked concerns among civil servants about how they will be paid for October, November, and December.
  
On the issues of KRG employees not receiving their salaries, Sudani recognized that such matters are apparent and stressed that they must be resolved.
 
“Today, everyone in the [Kurdistan] Region, especially employees, suffer from not receiving their salaries, which is the right of every employee as stated in the budget law and all budget laws of previous governments,” he stated.
 
“We have problems at the border crossings, and problems in interpreting articles of the budget law,” he added, referring to disputes between the federal government and the KRG.
 
He described the Paris-based arbitration court ruling in March as a “problem” that severely disrupted the implementation of the federal budget law.
 
Economic woes in the Kurdistan Region have worsened in recent months after Turkey suspended the flow of Kurdish crude oil through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline to its Ceyhan port in March following a ruling from a Paris arbitration court, causing the KRG billions of dollars in losses.

Several meetings have been held between Iraqi and Turkish delegations since March, aimed at resuming the flow of crude oil from the Kurdistan Region. The meetings, however, have not yielded any results.
 
“The Region lost its oil revenues and only non-oil revenues remained. Therefore, the problem became complicated and harmed the revenues that enabled it to fulfill its obligations towards the citizens,” he said.

At the directive of Sudani, Iraq’s finance ministry on Friday “issued letters granting the KRG a loan worth 700 billion dinars to cover the salaries of the Region’s employees,” it said in a statement. 

This is the third and final installment of a 2.1 trillion Iraqi dinar loan the federal government agreed in September with the KRG to cover three months of payroll after public sector employees in the Region went unpaid for nearly 90 days.

The KRG has repeatedly claimed that it needs over 900 billion dinars per month to pay civil servant salaries.

The frequent delay in paying salaries, which has been an issue for the cash-strapped KRG for nearly a decade, has exacerbated the concerns of civil servants, many of whom have no other source of income.

Frustrated teachers in several parts of the Kurdistan Region have been on strike since September, demanding salaries be paid regularly, every month.

Under Erbil and Baghdad’s September loan agreement, the KRG’s share in the 2023 federal budget will be used to pay back the loans. If Erbil’s share is not enough to cover the loans, its dues will be settled using its allocations within the 2024 budget.
 
“In order for us to face this problem, I was forced to give loans. You have heard of them. This procedure for implementing the budget law does not provide the regional government with the flow for granting salaries, so I disbursed the loans,” he said.
 
As a “final solution” to the pending economic woes that the Kurdistan Region’s citizens continue to face, Sudani suggested that KRG employees be treated the same as federal employees “and for them to receive their salaries regardless of any problems that we are talking about.”
 
However, such a solution would require an amendment to the budget law, and the prime minister confirmed that he has tasked the Iraqi parliament’s finance committee with carrying out the procedure in order for him to forward it to the Council of Ministers.
 
Work on amending the law is expected to resume after the Iraqi provincial council elections, which are scheduled for December 18, according to Sudani.

Kurdish oil exports

The issue with resuming oil exports lies with the lack of an agreement between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments and international oil companies (IOCs) operating in the Kurdistan Region, specifically about the cost of production per barrel of oil, according to Sudani.

“In light of the legal article in the House of Representatives law, we must give companies the cost of producing each barrel, which is $8, while the cost of producing one barrel in their contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government is $21,” he said.

“Who will pay this difference? Neither the Kurdistan Regional Government has the money nor can we violate the law. This is one of the problems faced by the budget law that was approved by the House of Representatives,” he added, clarifying that IOCs are waiting for the law to be amended to be able to begin oil exports. 

He confirmed that the Iraqi government will “certainly” agree to an amendment in the law “because we are losing around 470 thousand barrels per day.” 

Prior to the halt, about 400,000 barrels of oil were being exported daily by Erbil through the pipeline that runs to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, in addition to some 75,000 barrels from Kirkuk oil fields controlled by the Iraqi government. 

According to the highly-contentious Iraqi federal budget passed in June, the KRG is obliged to sell 400,000 barrels of crude oil through Iraq’s national oil marketing body, alternatively Baghdad would use Kurdish oil domestically. 

‘Terrorist attacks’ on US bases in Iraq

US troops in Iraq and Syria have come under the target of a series of rocket and drone attacks by pro-Iran militias since mid-October, in retaliation to Washington’s support for Israel in its war on Gaza.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups backed by Iran and affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.

Sudani stated that the presence of pro-Iranian armed factions in Iraq which operate outside state institutions is a “kind of occupation that violates Iraqi sovereignty.”

“We have a problem that we cannot hide and we talk about it frankly. It is the problem of weapons outside the scope of state institutions. There are well-known and declared armed factions that have a belief and tenet related to the presence of foreigners inside Iraq,” he said. 

He lamented that the armed groups have led Iraq to be portrayed as a country that is controlled by armed groups rather than a government.

Sudani described the attacks on US bases in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, as well as Washington’s embassy in Baghdad, as “terrorist attacks.” 

“All attacks, including recent attacks on the American embassy and the attack on Erbil airport, are terrorist attacks, and the government and its security services are pursuing the perpetrators, and God willing we will announce who committed the crimes,” he affirmed. 

However, he also stated that Iraq no longer requires the services of the US-led global coalition against ISIS because the terror group has been defeated inside Iraqi borders, saying that a government delegation must be formed to engage in dialogue with the coalition on this matter.

“We no longer need the international coalition. We have defeated terrorism and it has ended and they no longer represent a threat. ISIS does not represent a threat to the Iraqi state. Our security services, with all their titles, are capable of maintaining security throughout Iraq,” he affirmed,” adding that it is time for Iraq to get rid of the coalition’s presence.

He later clarified that the coalition remains present on Iraqi lands at the official invitation of the Iraqi government to play an advisory role for Iraqi security forces in the fight against ISIS. 

Need to implement Article 140 in disputed territories

Sudani labeled the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution as a “commitment” of the government but said that a number of steps have to be settled in order to implement the article.
 
“There is a complete package of steps that have to be accomplished in order for us to implement the article in accordance with the constitution.”
 
Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution has been one of the most controversial topics relating to the disputed areas in the war-torn country since the drafting of the constitution in 2005, as the failure to fully implement it has been cited as one of the main reasons for the continued attempts at demographic change in these areas.

The Article calls for the dispute over territory in the provinces of Diyala, Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Salahaddin to be resolved, and includes measures aimed at rectifying Arabization policies implemented under the rule of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It specifies that this process needs to be implemented by no later than the end of 2007, yet it remains to be fully applied around 16 years after that date.

Protests by farmers in Kirkuk

The Commander of the Iraqi army’s 11th Division in late May sent a letter to the Kirkuk agriculture department, asking them to make land in several villages south of Kirkuk available to be turned into military bases and residential units for the soldiers. The decree was strongly opposed by Kurdish and Turkmen farmers who held sit-in protests for over a month.

Sudani stressed the need to annul all decrees issued by the former Ba’ath regime’s body in charge of northern Iraq affairs and implement Article 140 to prevent similar problems from occurring going forward.

“We are facing problems between farmers with different ethnicities and are working to resolve them through temporary measures, but as I said, the radical solution is annulling all the decrees and that requires legislation at the parliament and the application of Article 140,” said Sudani.

A decree from Hussein’s regime in 1975 expelled Kurdish and Turkmen farmers out of their lands south of Kirkuk, transferring the ownership of the properties to the defense ministry and the municipality.

The Kurds and Turkmen came back to re-inhabit the land following the fall of Hussein’s Baathist regime in 2003. The Iraqi Council of Ministers issued a decree in 2012 calling for the annulment of all decisions from the body in charge of northern Iraq affairs during the Baath regime’s reign.

The 2012 decree was never fully implemented, causing problems for the Kurdish and Turkmen farmers in Kirkuk following the Iraqi army’s 2017 takeover of the city as there have been multiple attempts to take advantage of anti-minority bills and decrees issued under the Baath regime.
 
Halabja’s ascension to province
 
Touching on Halabja’s ascension to an Iraqi province, Sudani said that Iraq is “close to this achievement” and that the country is working to finalize the procedure.

During the tenure of former PM Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Council of Ministers approved a bill to make Halabja the country’s 19th province on December 31, 2013. Nonetheless, the deterioration of Erbil-Baghdad relations soon after, as well as disagreements between the Sunni and Shiite blocs of the parliament, prevented the legislature from officially passing the bill.

One of the factors that resulted in the 2013 bill not coming into force was Shiite blocs of the Iraqi parliament requesting that several historically Shiite-populated districts be turned into provinces as well. Shiite and Sunni blocs have again asked the Iraqi parliament to ascend several other towns and districts to provinces before green-lighting Halabja's ascension.
 
“We, as a government, are seeking to approve the law and we are now in the process of administrative procedures related to the province and the exercise of its functions,” he said.
 
The Iraqi cabinet in March approved a bill to make Halabja a province, in recognition of the 35th anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s brutal chemical attack against the city. For the decision to be finalized, the Iraqi legislature needs to pass the bill through a vote.

The Kurdistan Region’s Council of Ministers in 2014 issued a decision to turn Halabja into a province, making it the fourth province in the Region. Four years later, the Iraqi interior ministry recognized it as a province.

Halabja used to be a city within Sulaimani province. Some residents have complained that not much has changed since its status has been changed to province by the KRG.
 
The province has a population of 120,000 and it consists of four subdistricts: Khurmal, Biyara, Bamo, and Sirwan. It is also a tourist destination.
 
Earlier this year, Sudani told Rudaw in a press conference that his cabinet is “serious” about recognizing the Kurdish city of Halabja as a province.

Iraqi dinar instability, market fluctuation
 
A major issue Iraq is currently traversing through is the unstable currency, with the value of the US dollar currently sitting at around 1,570 Iraqi dinars in the currency markets of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region despite the official rate in the central bank being set to 1,300 IQD per $1.
 
The discrepancy has compounded the economic woes of citizens, who typically receive their salaries in dinars but are forced to deal with more expensive prices due to the devaluation of the currency on the black market. 

The Iraqi dinar has been losing value against the US dollar for several months, leading to a surge in prices of basic goods and consequent outcry from the Iraqi public. The depreciation has been attributed to the smuggling of dollars out of Iraq, mainly to neighboring Iran.

Sudani reiterated that companies and students studying abroad can buy dollars from the central bank at the official rate but said he refuses to sell dollars to malicious actors who intend to smuggle the currency abroad. 
 
“We have many problems, for example, we have problems with our neighbor Iran. It [Iran] is being punished and there are no transfers to its account because all banks are refusing to make transfers to it and there is no bank transferring to Iran due to US sanctions,” he said. 

He commended Iraq’s banking system, saying that 95 percent of the country’s trade passes through the legitimate banking platform.

“This is a matter that requires patience, but the end result is that we have a solid banking system that conducts legitimate and unsuspicious transfers. Now I say with confidence that our trade … 95 percent of our legitimate trade passes through the platform,” Sudani affirmed

Climate change, water scarcity in Iraq

Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable to climate change, including water and food insecurity, according to the UN. It is facing a severe water shortage because of reduced precipitation, higher temperatures, and waste mismanagement.

Scorching temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius were recorded in Iraq this year, coupled with water scarcity, desertification, and reduced rainfall. 

According to the UN, over 130,000 people in southern Iraq are prone to displacement by the end of 2023 due to the effects of climate change. 

“We suffer from water scarcity in all provinces, including the [Kurdistan] Region, and we suffer from climate change to the point that it has reached the state of an existential threat in many areas due to migration and its impacts,” Sudani said about Iraq’s worsening climate problem.

“We have water scarcity and accelerating desertification, as well as the burning of associated gas, which in turn generates gasses that affect the phenomenon of global warming. We also have environmental problems,” he added. 

In order to mitigate the impact of climate change on Iraq, the prime minister said he plans to build water treatment plants in “all areas from Mosul to Basra.”

In December of last year, the World Bank estimated that Iraq needs around $233 billion worth of investments by 2040 to respond to the effects of climate change. 

At a climate conference in Basra in March, Sudani announced a plan to plant five million trees to combat desertification, with private banks footing the bill for half a million of the trees.

A crucial problem leading to the drying up of Iraq’s water resources is water mismanagement, according to Sudani. He said that his government plans to address this issue by offering higher prices for wheat grown on a farm that uses sprinkler irrigation systems rather than those that use traditional methods of irrigation, which use a large quantity of water. 

“Imagine the amount of water that will be saved by converting water management in the agricultural sector in a scientific and accurate manner to drinking water,” he stated. 

The crisis is worsened by dams upstream in Turkey and Iran that have led to a significant decrease in the volume of water entering the country.

The UN Environment Program (UNEP) has long warned that water availability in Iraq will decrease by around 20 percent by 2025, threatening the long-term stability of agriculture and industry sectors.

Sudani also called for the need to utilize rainwater, especially northward in the Kurdistan Region where rainfall is more abundant than in the southern provinces. He said his government has devised a plan to construct small dams in the Region to collect rainwater. 

“Within the plan, we have established a group of dams in the Kurdistan Region. It is an integrated plan for all parts of Iraq and we call them small dams for rainwater harvesting, so we can direct it to other uses,” he said, calling the plan an “ideal solution to the water problem in a radical way.”

Mass killing of Kurds during Anfal campaign

Asked about the Anfal genocide, the prime minister said he has actively contributed to exposing the crimes of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime.

“I remember when I was Minister of Human Rights in Mr. Nouri al-Maliki’s second government from 2010 to 2014, we contributed to exposing the crimes of the previous regime and presented them to the world in international conferences,” he stated.

The Anfal campaign, named after the eighth surah in the Quran, was the codename for Hussein’s genocide that killed around 182,000 Kurds.

Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani has previously urged the Iraqi federal government to reimburse victims and their families, adding that the survivors should be provided with “greater and better services.”

The Iraqi parliament recognized Anfal as genocide on April 14, 2008. The military commanders who carried out the campaign were handed death sentences. Ali Hassan Majeed, known as “Chemical Ali,” was hanged in 2011.

Yet 35 years after the massacre, Anfal survivors say they still have not received compensation from Iraq.

“Anfal was one of the images of the crimes committed by the dictatorial regime against our people in the Kurdistan Region,” Sudani said. 

He also touched on the delay in returning remains of Anfal victims, attributing the delay to the rise of ISIS and numerous other factors. 

“We have a specialized, internationally professional team. Procedures for searching graves, exhuming remains, and DNA analysis - these procedures take time,” he said, adding that a specialized community is working on the process. 

ISIS: Weakening capacity to attack Iraq

ISIS swept through vast swathes of Iraq in 2014 and declared a so-called caliphate in a brazen offensive that saw the terror group take control of several Iraqi cities, including the second largest northern city of Mosul. It was declared territorially defeated in 2017.  

During its brutal reign, the group committed unspeakable atrocities on non-Muslims and Shiite Muslims, such as genocide, sexual slavery, and massacres. 

The militants are particularly active in stretches of land disputed by the Iraqi government and the KRG, which include a security vacuum that includes parts of Kirkuk, Salahaddin, and Diyala.

Despite its cells maintaining a presence in Iraq, Sudani said that the terror group is incapable of threatening the country and is unable to reorganize into a substantial force again.

“Small, terrified groups hiding in the mountains have no foothold in Iraq,” he said. “We chase them everywhere and strike them in all locations.” 

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