BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq’s Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Saturday described a meeting by officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Baghdad as “crucial” for a key oil agreement reached last week, and said that attempts by the parliament to bring a no-confidence vote against him were “politically motivated."
"The KRG delegation's visit to Baghdad was crucial and successful," Zebari said in an interview with Rudaw TV.
“All the pending and basic issues between Erbil and Baghdad were discussed between both sides and the continuation of such meetings will end all the issues," he said.
Last week’s oil agreement in Baghdad followed a meeting Monday between Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and Iraqi Premier Haider al-Abadi.
At least 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Kirkuk will be jointly exported to Turkey by Erbil and Baghdad, according to the new accord.
Commenting on an anticipated independence referendum by the Kurdistan Region, Zebari said: "the question of independence was also the central focus of the meetings with Shiite authorities in Baghdad."
Zebari also said that attempts "to withdraw confidence from me by the Iraqi government was politically motivated by some parties." He added that the motives behind such moves were “to worsen the situation in Iraq."
An official from Zebari’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) faction in the Iraqi parliament said that efforts had begun to thwart the no-confidence move.
Renas Jano, a KDP MP, said that his faction also had met with parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri and other key politicians in the Sunni and Shiite factions in order to “foil the plot of those MPs who want to withdraw confidence from the finance minister through their political questioning.”
Jano added that the KDP politicians had asked those parties to “stay neutral” during voting against Zebari.
“They appreciated Mr. Zebari’s roles in Iraq and the government and plead us to play a positive role in this regard."
Zebari, a veteran Kurdish politician from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), has been in office since October 2014. He served as Iraq's minister of foreign affairs for nearly a decade before that.
Three Kurdish ministers are currently serving in Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi's government, including the ministers for migration, culture and finances.
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