Kurdistan challenges Iraq's budget payment freeze as KRG delegation meets with Baghdad officials
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On Wednesday, the cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) sent a 10 point letter to its federal counterpart with documents, statistics, and legal arguments that challenged a recently-announced plan to suspend monthly payments of the region's share of the national budget that is crucial to paying salaries of government workers.
This came following the decision of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers in Baghdad to stop the payments, a decision the letter said the KRG considered "a violation of the law."
On Monday, the Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani called on the United Nations to mediate between the Baghdad and Erbil during a meeting with UN representative to Iraq, Jeanine Hennis- Plasschaert. Barzani described Baghdad's recent decision as "unconstitutional" and "unlawful."
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"The KRG budget and salaries must not be politicized," read a statement from the Kurdistan Region's Presidency office. It added that Barzani had asked the UN Special Representative "to mediate in resolving the ongoing dispute."
On Monday, Plasschaert held a meeting with Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, during which the premier stated the federal government's move was "political pressure against the people of the Kurdistan Region," an English statement on the KRG website read.
Baghdad "should not use Erbil’s budget share as a bargaining ploy," the prime minister affirmed.
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These developments come amid ongoing efforts by Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Mustafa al-Kadhimi to form a cabinet that would be accepted by the country's political elite, most notable among them leading Shia parties.
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Also on Wednesday, a KRG delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani met with senior Iraqi government officials in Baghdad "to address outstanding issues with federal authorities," according to a statement.
During initial meetings, Talabani discussed with Baghdad's delegation, headed by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Oil Thamir Ghadhban, "the two parties discussed the importance of resolving the outstanding problems, especially concerning oil and the federal budget."
The talks are scheduled to continue into Thursday.
Wednesday's letter from the KRG stated that the policy of the KRG was and still aims to address existing issues between the federal government "in accordance with the constitution and on the basis of its clauses," adding that the constitution "guarantees the right of participation and partnership of all sides" as a founding principle for the federal system of the regions and governorates in the federal government, and that includes salaries and financial benefits for all employees of the state.
It also pointed out that the region still hosts more than one million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) from other parts of Iraq, bearing their costs of living without significant contributions toward this end from the federal government.
The letter also explained that the federal government did not send the region's financial share of the budget starting from February 2014 to 2019, which forced the region to find alternative sources to finance its expenditures and needs through borrowing, severity measures, and reducing public expenditures and compulsory savings of employee’s wages.
Documents and attachments with the letter, included a table for the compensation of damages resulting from the crimes of the previous regime committed in the Kurdistan Region from 1963 to 2003, totalling in the hundreds of billions of dollars for human, material, and environmental losses, and damage to the infrastructure of the region.
After a protracted and near-total breakdown of ties between Erbil and Baghdad following the Kurdistan Region's September 2017 independence referendum, the governments eventually converged on a range of issues, especially after Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi came into office in late 2018.
This included a comprehensive oil agreement that requires Erbil to hand over 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) in return for, among other things, securing the region’s allocation in the Iraqi federal budget. The Kurdistan Region did not implement the oil handover, but in late 2019, Erbil again renewed the agreement amid new negotiations.
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Oil and budget have been the major source of dispute between the central government and KRG since the region began to export its oil independently.
Editing by John J. Catherine