PHOTO: Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and Iraq Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi
Iraq’s Government and the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan have ended a lengthy dispute with a deal over the country’s oil revenues.
The Government of Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has also agreed to pay the salaries of Kurdish peshmerga to allow the flow of US weapons to the Kurds, with the Iraqi Government as intermediary.
“Now the priority really is to confront ISIS [the Islamic State],” Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.
Under the deal, Iraqi Kurdistan will provide 550,000 barrels of oil a day to be sold through Government channels, with the proceeds divided between Baghdad and the Kurdish region. Included is 300,000 barrels a day from the disputed region of Kirkuk, occupied by the Kurds in June after the Iraqi Army retreated before the offensive led by the Islamic State.
Baghdad will permanently resume payments to Kurdistan, which had been halted under the previous Government of Nuri al-Maliki, that constitute 17% of the national budget. It will provide $1 billion to pay for salaries and weapons for the peshmerga.
Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said on Tuesday, “We hope to turn this into a new chapter in the relations between Baghdad and Erbil, and we never accepted the threatening tone which was commonly used before.”
