ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq’s Deputy Parliament Speaker Shakhawan Abdullah on Sunday told The New Region that Iraq takes joy in delaying the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants, as talks continue between Erbil and Baghdad to ensure salary disbursement for the remaining months of the year.

The Iraqi government’s finance ministry in May decided to suspend funding the Kurdistan Region’s civil servant salaries, arguing that the Region had already exhausted its share of the annual budget in May.

Following numerous meetings between the two governments to discuss their disagreements over oil exports and domestic revenue, the Iraqi finance ministry on Sunday transferred 690 billion dinars to the account of the Kurdistan Region’s finance ministry for the Region’s civil servants’ salaries of June.

The Iraqi cabinet decision comes against the backdrop of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) accepting to send 120 billion Iraqi dinars in non-oil revenues to the federal treasury as its share of the Kurdistan Region’s domestic revenue. The figure is now the main point of contention between the two governments, with the KRG advocating for a lower figure for subsequent months; the Iraqi government, meanwhile, requests 100 percent of certain domestic revenue sources that will see the figure soar to nearly 200 billion dinars.

Addressing the delay of the salary disbursement, Abdullah said that the salaries “could have been sent a month ago,” noting that “what is done is purely to hurt our people, Iraq takes pleasure in the pain of our people,” and to witness “our people starving.”

He added that teams from Erbil and Baghdad will continue talks “to agree also on non-oil revenues,” to ensure the fate of the civil servant salaries for the remaining months of the year.

The Region’s civil servant salaries for the month of May were disbursed in late July after months of deliberation between the two governments, with June and July salaries yet to be disbursed as of the time of writing this article.