ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - In the presence of President Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) will hold a high-level meeting on Monday to discuss the latest developments, including outstanding financial disputes between Erbil and Baghdad, an official confirmed to The New Region. 

“There is a glimmer of hope to resolve issues,” between Erbil and Baghdad, as efforts have been intensified between Erbil and Baghdad to solve the financial issues that left civil servants on the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) payroll for over two months without pay, Fazel Mirani, head of the Executive Committee at KDP’s Political Bureau, told The New Region on Sunday. 

The meeting comes as the KDP has already given Baghdad a “final opportunity” to send civil servants’ wages, coming after the party boycotted a parliamentary session over the issues on Saturday.

In a letter addressed to the 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, a move prompting the Kurdish government and civil servants to file complaints to the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court against the decision by the federal government.

The recent suspension of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servant salaries by the Iraqi finance ministry has sparked outrage among the Region’s public and officials alike, who have slammed the decision as “political.”

Authorities in Baghdad and Erbil have held numerous meetings in both capital cities to resolve the issue once and for all, but to no avail, a serious crisis forcing Kurdish officials to ponder alternatives, including a possible withdrawal from Iraq’s political process. 

The New Region learned on Wednesday that the KRG notified the US that it had issued a 48-hour deadline to the Iraqi government to reach a final agreement to mitigate the effects of the crisis, warning that alternative options would have to be pursued should an agreement not be reached in time.

The KDP is the largest party in the Kurdistan Region and makes up the Kurdish government with the PUK.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as well as representatives of the Coordination Framework and the Badr Organization, wrote a letter to President Barzani urging the KDP not to withdraw from the political process in Baghdad and to show patience, adding that the Iraqi government will try to send one month's worth of pay to the Region's public sector in the coming week, The New Region reported shortly before the KDP's statement on Saturday.

Speaking on the state of the negotiations, Iraqi Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani on Saturday said that both Erbil and Baghdad “have agreed on almost all the clauses” of a prospective agreement, with the most salient outstanding dispute being the daily amount of oil granted to the Kurdistan Region to meet local demand, with the former seeking 65,000 barrels while the latter offers merely 46,000.