ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani received on Sunday Iraq’s Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, with the meeting mainly centering around outstanding financial disputes between Erbil and Baghdad.
“Both sides agreed that the matter of salaries must not be mixed with problems and political rivalries whatsoever, and that the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants should not pay the price of such disputes, agreeing that this problem must be resolved as soon as possible, since the peolpe of Kurdistan have been treated with unjustly,” reads a statement by Prime Minister Barzani’s media office.
It detailed that Prime Minister Barzani and Mashhadani “stressed that the salary issue should be resolved as soon as possible and the financial entitlements of the Kurdistan Region should be provided.”
Mashhadani arrived in Erbil on Sunday to discuss joint issues, coordination between the central and regional governments, and Iraq’s upcoming November parliamentary elections, read a statement from the parliament speaker’s office.
In addition to Prime Minister Barzani, he will meet other Kurdish leaders.
The meeting comes as a recent suspension of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servant salaries has sparked outrage among the Region’s public as well as the officials and politicians, who have slammed the decision as “political.” The move has prompted civil servants from the Kurdistan Region to file a complaint to the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court, demanding uninterrupted funding of their salaries on their specified dates as per a previous ruling of the court.
In a letter addressed to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in late May, Iraqi Finance Minister Taif Sami said that Baghdad was “unable to continue funding the Region” for the rest of the year, arguing that Erbil has already exceeded its share of the annual budget.
Representatives from Erbil and Baghdad have engaged in fresh rounds of talks in both cities in recent days aimed at resolving the longstanding financial issues and making a final push toward the resumption of the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports —a move seen as the only step out of the crisis.
Spokesperson of the KRG Peshawa Hawramani said on Wednesday that funding the salaries of the Region’s employees by the federal government is contingent upon an agreement between international oil companies (IOCs) and Baghdad for the resumption of Erbil’s exports. “The ball is now in Baghdad’s court,” Hawramani said. “The fate of one million employees awaits a signature” from Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.
Hawramani noted there were third parties involved in the recent meetings between Erbil and Baghdad, notably the US, which “wants the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports to resume.” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told The New Region on Wednesday that Washington will not accept “an indefinite delay” in resolving issues relating to the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports.
Years of conflict and unresolved issues between Erbil and Baghdad, and economic sanctions and pressure on Erbil by federal authorities, have pushed employees in the Region to live from paycheck to paycheck.
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