ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraqi President Barham Salih met Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, Parliament Speaker Rewaz Fayaq and Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani on Wednesday to discuss ways to resolve long standing Erbil-Baghdad issues amid continued efforts to bring the two sides to reach an agreement ahead of 2020 budget talks.
"Of course, meetings between the president [Barham Sailh] and Kurdistan Region officials will yield a positive result," Salar Mahmood, an adviser of President Salih, told Rudaw on Wednesday, branding such as meetings as being "very timely and important."
Salih wants to "reach a result that is going to be in the interests of the people of Kurdistan," Salar added.
"There was a good degree of understanding between the president of the Kurdistan Region, prime minister and speaker of the parliament. We are trying to reach a result before the new year to guarantee all the rights of the people of Kurdistan."
Iraqi President Barham Salih arrived in the Kurdistan Regional capital Erbil on Tuesday evening, heading up a delegation sent to discuss oil, the budget, and territorial disputes – hot topics that have long caused ruptures between the semi-autonomous region and the federal government.
Delegations have recently shuttled back and forth between Erbil and Baghdad as relations between the two continue to improve after hitting their lowest ebb in late-2017.
Erbil and Baghdad have formed committees for talks on the joint administration of the disputed territories, the KRG’s share of the federal budget, and the touchy subject of independent oil sales.
Baghdad cut the KRG’s share of the budget from 17 percent to zero in 2014 in response to the Region’s independent sale of oil. Coupled with a costly war with the Islamic State (ISIS) and the collapse of global oil prices in 2016, the Region was plunged into a financial crisis.
The KRG’s share of the budget was reinstated in 2018, but at the reduced rate of roughly 12 percent.
Under the 2019 budget, the KRG agreed to send 250,000 barrels of oil per day to Iraq’s state oil marketing body SOMO in exchange for its share of the budget. Although Baghdad has delivered funds to Erbil’s central bank, the KRG is yet to send a single barrel of oil.
Erbil-Baghdad relations have generally improved since Adil Abdul-Mahdi became prime minister in late 2018.
As an independent technocrat with historically good relations with the Kurds, Abdul-Mahdi has presided over a thawing of the tensions between the two, which reached their peak under his predecessor Haider al-Abadi.
Already strained relations collapsed on October 16, 2017 when Iraqi forces and Iran-backed militias launched an offensive into the disputed territories, forcing the Kurdish Peshmerga to withdraw.
