“Today in Baghdad, I met with the prime minister, the president, and speaker of the House of Representatives and stressed that the Kurdistan Region is willing to resolve all the impending disputes with the Iraqi federal government in accordance with the constitution and strengthen coordination in all fields,” Barzani said in a Facebook post Thursday.
One of these impending disputes is over the 2020 budget. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has so far failed to keep its side of the deal agreed in the 2019 budget to deliver 250,000 barrels of oil per day to central government in exchange for its share of the federal budget.
This is Barzani’s first trip to Baghdad since he was sworn-in as president on June 10.
Iraqi President Barham Salih, a Kurd and senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said the Iraqi constitution should form a basis for the resolving Erbil-Baghdad disputes.
“This visit helps improve Erbil-Baghdad relations and helps develop the legal institutions of Iraq,” he said in a statement released by the president’s office.
Without offering details, Karim Sinjari, the outgoing KRG interior minister, told Rudaw the meeting between Barzani and Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi was “good and successful”.
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani (L) meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in Baghdad, June 20, 2019. Photo: PMO / social media
Fuad Hussein, Iraq’s finance minister and a member of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said the Iraqi PM and the Kurdistan Region President agreed to form two committees to set the agenda on future talks to resolve oil and budget issues.
Iraq’s Minister for Construction and Housing, Bangin Rekani, described the PM’s meeting with Barzani as “fruitful and very good”, also without providing details.
The KRG’s relations with Baghdad hit rock bottom in late 2017 after the Kurdistan independence referendum.
Already frosty relations over independent oil sales and the KRG’s share of the federal budget came to a head following the non-binding vote when Baghdad imposed an embargo on international flights to and from the Region’s airports and launched a military operation against the Peshmerga in the disputed territories.
Relations have vastly improved since Abdul-Mahdi came to power last year, but this spirt of goodwill could soon run out if the KRG continues to flout its end of the bargain to deliver oil.
Abdul-Mahdi is under mounting pressure from Shiite leaders to take a harder line on the KRG and the budget issue.
The KRG may not bend unless Iraq shows it is willing to implement Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which would see referendums held in the disputed territories to determine whether they remain part of federal Iraq or join the Kurdistan Region.
This is a developing story...
