ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation is in Baghdad to discuss the ongoing fuel crisis in the Region with a temporary Iraqi parliament committee on the issue, a Kurdish lawmaker said on Thursday.

“The committee will host officials from the [Kurdistan Region’s] Ministry of Natural Resources today,” Sipan Sherwani, a Kurdish lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament, told The New Region. 

Sherwani added that following the meeting, the committee will submit its proposals to the Iraqi parliament speaker in an attempt to resolve the issue. 

The fuel crisis in the Kurdistan Region is ongoing despite a recent KRG decision to increase petroleum supplies to gas stations in the Region and the government introducing pricing caps in July. 

Shortages were caused by the renewed regional conflict and higher costs of materials needed to produce higher qualities of fuel have resulted in reduced supply at gas stations and higher prices across the Kurdistan Region provinces.

In a meeting with representatives from the natural resources ministry and other relevant authorities in late July, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called for resolving the issue “as soon as possible, in a way that takes into account the interests of the citizens of the Kurdistan Region.”

The Kurdish premier also directed exerting efforts to “prevent monopolies in the fuel sector, especially gasoline.”

The Iraqi parliament has also formed a temporary committee at the behest of its Kurdish lawmakers in an effort to resolve the crisis.