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Kurdistan
British Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Hickey (left) meets President of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani in Erbil on February 1, 2021. Photo: Presidency
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Britain's ambassador to Iraq met with top Kurdistan Region officials on Monday to discuss pressing Erbil-Baghdad matters.
Ambassador Stephen Hickey met with the Kurdistan Region's president, prime minister, and former President to discuss the ongoing Erbil-Baghdad budget dispute and the Shingal (Sinjar) security deal, among other matters.
In Hickey's meeting with President Nechirvan Barzani, "Britain’s role in the process of reform in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, talks between Erbil and Baghdad over budget dispute, Shingal deal, the threat of Islamic State (ISIS) re-emergence, and upcoming Iraqi elections were discussed,” according to a statement from the Presidency's office. Consul General to Erbil James Thornton also attended the meeting.
All sides assured the importance of implementing the Shingal deal, and Erbil and Baghdad reaching an agreement to solve their disputes, the statement read.
Baghdad reached a deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the governance and security of Shingal, which is disputed between the two governments, on October 9.
According to the agreement, security in the disputed area is Baghdad's responsibility. The federal government will have to establish a new armed force recruited from the local population and expel fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and their affiliated groups, according to agreement details released in October.
Implementation of the agreement began in November with the deployment of some 6,000 federal police to parts of Shingal that border Syria.
A commander of Shingal's Ezidkhan Protection Force, part of the Peshmerga, told Rudaw English last month that several different armed groups remain in the area.
“There are still Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) units and Kurdistan Workers’ Party affiliated groups inside Shingal, even though they were supposed to leave,” commander Haider Shasho said.
However, the spokesperson of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command later denied Shasho’s claim.
"There are no armed organizations inside Sinjar under any name, and we will never allow them to be," Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji claimed in an interview with Rudaw's Sangar Abdulrahman.
Ambassador Hickey also held meetings with both prime minister Masrour Barzani and former Kurdistan Region president Masoud Barzani.
“The British ambassador expressed his country’s readiness to provide assistance for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq to reach a fair and long-term agreement based on the constitution,” read a statement from the PM’s office.
The 2021 budget bill was approved by Iraq’s Council of Ministers on December 21. Parliament has met twice to discuss the bill.
A KRG delegation led by Kurdistan Region deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani arrived in Baghdad on Sunday, after failure to reach a deal with the Iraqi parliament to ensure the Kurdistan Region’s share in the 2021 budget bill in their last meeting.
Baghdad failed to pass a budget in 2020 because of political turmoil, record low oil prices, and the coronavirus pandemic. In November, Iraqi lawmakers passed the Fiscal Deficit Coverage Bill to approve loans to cover civil servant salaries for the last two months of the year.
The bill passed with a majority vote, despite a walkout staged by Kurdish MPs angered that Erbil is obliged to hand over an unspecified amount of oil in exchange for funds – a clause they said was not in the original bill.
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