Kurdistan PM talks Erbil-Baghdad ties in meeting UN diplomat
“I called on [UNAMI] to help us to reach a constitutional agreement,”
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Sunday met Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). They discussed Erbil-Baghdad relations and the latest developments in the wider region, according to an official statement.
The statement noted that the prime minister had told the UN diplomat that the salaries of Kurdistan Region’s public sector employees “is being used as a political pressure card against the people of Kurdistan,” a statement from Barzani’s office said.
The prime minister also explained that to Hennis-Plasschaert that Baghdad is yet to send even part of Kurdistan’s financial dues “for more than six months” in 2020.
“I called on [UNAMI] to help us to reach a constitutional agreement,” he said in a tweet following the meeting.
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The two sides also “discussed the importance of the Sinjar agreement.”
Despite a recent agreement between Iraq’s federal government and the autonomous Kurdistan Region to remove all armed militias from the disputed district of Sinjar (Shingal), fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are still present but now wear Iraqi security force uniforms, an official in the regional Peshmerga Ministry stated on Saturday.
Read More: Peshmerga: PKK is still in Sinjar, wearing Iraqi forces' uniforms
The Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Oct. 9th announced they had reached an agreement to restore and normalize the situation in the Sinjar (Shingal) area, where competing armed groups are active.
Read More: KRG and Baghdad reach administrative, security agreement on Sinjar
Editing by Khrush Najari