PM Barzani, KRG delegation meet on budget talks with Baghdad

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Thursday convened with a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation for an update on budget talks with the federal Iraqi government.

The delegation, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, returned to the Kurdish capital on Wednesday after meeting with Iraqi officials, including premier Mustafa al-Kadhimi, to discuss Iraq’s delay in implementing the budget law. 

The budget was approved in late March after months of heated negotiations between political parties. 

Both regional and federal monetary observation bodies agreed to a joint mechanism to implement the deal, according to a KRG press release.

“In this way, no excuses will be left for Iraq’s ministry of finance to not release the Region’s financial rights and entitlements which are stipulated in the budget law,” the release noted.

The autonomous Kurdistan Region’s share of the yearly Iraqi budget is a source of considerable tension between the regional and federal governments.

Last month the deputy speaker of the Kurdistan Region's parliament said that the KRG never received its monthly allotments for up to a year in 2020 and early 2021. Iraq’s 2021 federal budget amounts to 130 trillion Iraqi dinars ($89.65 billion) – of which the KRG is allocated 12.67 percent – with an estimated federal deficit of 28.7 trillion dinars ($19.79 billion). It sets the price of oil at $45 a barrel.