PM Barzani, Italian envoy to Iraq stress resolving budgetary issues
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) — Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and the Italian envoy to Iraq on Tuesday stressed resolving the budgetary disputes between Erbil and Baghdad so that Kurdish civil servants could be paid on time.
Prime Minister Barzani received Ambassador Maurizio Greganti in Erbil, where they discussed the latest political developments in Iraq and the Middle East as well as Rome-Erbil relations, a statement from the premier’s office read.
Barzani and Greganti stressed resolving the Erbil-Baghdad disputes fundamentally, particularly with regard to the Region’s financial entitlements within the framework of the Iraqi constitution, the press release added.
The officials stressed that the Kurdish civil servants should be paid on time every month just as other Iraqi employees without any issue.
Barzani and the employee also stressed the importance of holding the Kurdistan Region's parliamentary elections on time in Feb. 2024.
Top Kurdistan Region’s officials have insisted on several occasions that they had fully cooperated with Baghdad in order to resolve the budgetary disputes between the two sides.
Accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani and senior KRG officials, Barzani visited Baghdad in mid-September and met with the Iraqi prime minister, president, and speaker of parliament to find a mechanism to resolve the budgetary dispute, which had delayed the payment of Kurdish civil servants’ salaries for three months.
Following the meetings, Barzani announced short-term and long-term solutions that had been proposed to the Iraqi officials in order to overcome the dispute.
Amendments should be made to the country’s three-year budget law adopted in June, according to the long-term plan, while the short-term solution focuses on reimbursing funds to the Kurdish public employees.
Despite meeting its commitments as outlined in the agreements, Erbil asserts that the federal government has not disbursed salaries to its civil servants as per their prior mutual agreement.
