ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation is currently in Baghdad to hold talks on the resumption of oil exports and resolve financial disputes between the two sides, as ongoing talks between them are said to have seen progress and yielded positive results.
The visit comes three days after a technical delegation from the Iraqi federal government consisting of an undersecretary of the federal oil ministry, representatives of the Iraqi Supreme Economic Council, representatives of the Iraqi Financial Supervision Bureau, and representatives of both the North Oil Company (NOC) and Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO), came to the Kurdistan Region’s capital Erbil.
"Positive steps have been taken to resume oil exports,” Vian Sabri, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) bloc in the Iraqi Parliament, told The New Region. "We have to reach a concrete agreement.”
"There are many little technical issues in the way of the resumption of the oil exports,” Sabri said.
The Kurdish official in Baghdad went on to say "as the Kurdistan Regional Government, we have fulfilled our commitments… The Iraqi government says the Regional Government must send all the non-oil revenues to Baghdad."
The New Region understands the KRG has shown willingness to hand over 50 percent of non-oil revenues and 280,000 barrels of oil per day to Baghdad, two key topics that are being discussed between both sides.
Another Kurdish official in Baghdad said the delegation’s visit to Baghdad is the fruit of “the positive results” of the talks between Erbil and Baghdad in the Kurdistan Region, and added that both sides will make decisive decisions on salaries and oil exports in the coming days.
In late May, the Iraqi finance ministry informed the KRG that it would suspend funding the Region for the rest of 2025, claiming that Erbil had already exhausted its share of the annual budget. Baghdad’s decision, deemed “a political decision” by Kurdish authorities, jeopardizes the livelihoods of the Region’s over one million salaried workers for eight months.
Exports of the Kurdistan Region’s oil through the Turkish Ceyhan pipeline were halted in March 2023 after Ankara lost a case against Baghdad in a Paris-based arbitration court. The case accused Ankara of breaching a 1973 agreement by allowing the KRG to start selling oil independently of Baghdad.
Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said during a press conference on Wednesday that the Erbil-Baghdad financial crisis may “soon” be resolved.
Another high-level delegation from the federal government is set to visit Erbil in the coming days to address the issues and seek more durable solutions.
Facebook
LinkedIn
Telegram
X
