ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The spokesperson of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said on Wednesday that “a preliminary agreement” has been reached between Erbil and Baghdad over funding salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants, who have gone unpaid for more than two and a half months. 

 

“There is a preliminary agreement between Erbil and Baghdad to hand over oil and non-oil revenues" to Iraq, so the federal government will begin disbursing salaries of Kurdistan Region’s civil servants,  Peshawa Hawramani told The New Region.

 

Hawramani added in a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Kurdistan Region on Wednesday, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, and all cabinet ministers echoed the sentiment that Erbil should “take a step further forward” to reach an agreement with Baghdad. 

 

In the meantime, Prime Minister Barzani’s media office said in a statement that in today’s meeting of the Council of Ministers, Barzani and Talabani put forth “the details of a joint understanding reached in Baghdad yesterday on the provision of financial entitlements and obligations of the Kurdistan Region."

 

"After discussions and exchange of viewpoints, the Council of Ministers welcomed the understanding and decided to implement the contents of the understanding, which, based on that, the federal government will send the salaries and financial entitlements to the Kurdistan Region,” the statement read. 

 

Wednesday’s meeting of the Council of Ministers was to discuss the course of ongoing talks and dialogue with the central government, and comes a day after Bafel Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and Fuad Hussein, Iraq’s foreign minister and a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani in Baghdad on the issue at hand. 

 

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.

 

The decision has resulted in a halt in disbursing the Region’s civil servant salaries, who have yet to be paid for the months of May and June.

 

Top leaders from the KDP and the PUK met in Erbil’s Pirmam on Monday to discuss their positions on the financial issues between Erbil and Baghdad going forward, with both sides agreeing that “all efforts must be intensified toward resolving the issue.”

 

The KDP on Saturday said they were granting Baghdad one last chance to solve the issues, citing a promise by the federal government to address the problem.