Roj Bash Kurdistan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish ministers in the Iraqi cabinet are being recruited to help resolve disagreements between Erbil and Baghdad over next year’s federal budget before it goes to parliament, a Kurdish MP said.

Muayyid Tayyib, a member of the Iraqi parliament and spokesman of the legislature’s Kurdistan Alliance coalition, told Rudaw that Kurdish ministers are being asked to use their influence in the Iraqi cabinet to help resolve the serious disputes.

“The Kurdistan Alliance has decided to put pressure on Iraq’s Council of Ministers through its Kurdish ministers in order to reach an agreement on the disputed issues ahead of the budget going to parliament,” Tayyib said.

Disagreements over the autonomous Kurdistan Region’s share of the budget resurface annually between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The two differ on several major issues: Erbil insists it is owed billions of dollars in payments to foreign oil companies; Baghdad objects to Erbil signing direct oil deals with foreign companies.

Erbil also awaits 7 trillion Iraqi dinars in back pay for the Peshmarga armed forces, and the Kurds complain they never get the full 17 percent share of the budget specified under the constitution.

Tayyib anticipated that Baghdad might again withhold payment for the oil companies and the Peshmargas.

Legally, Iraq’s national budget has to be sent to parliament by October. But the 2014 budget, the largest in Iraq’s history and estimated at some 174 trillion Iraqi dinars ($150 billion dollars), still has not been sent for approval.

Iraq’s Shiite Arab Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose relations with Erbil are thorny, is blamed for the forceful passing of the current year’s budget without heed to Kurdish objections and concerns.

The Kurdistan Alliance fears that could happen again.

“Other than boycotting the sessions of the Iraqi Parliament and Council of Ministers, we have no other means of pressure to prevent the approval of the 2014 federal budget without our consent,” Tayyib explained.

“Our position is different than last year because now the Kurdistan Region has its own pipeline to export oil,” he added, referring to the enclave’s first direct oil exports, expected to begin next month through a newly-extended pipeline to Turkey.

“Hussein Shahristani, the Iraqi deputy prime minister for energy affairs, has officially asked for a reduction of the budget payment to Kurdistan,” Fazil Nabi, deputy minister of finance in the Iraqi government, told Rudaw. “He is claiming that the KRG has not sent the 2012 oil revenues to the Iraqi government,” Nabi added.

But another Kurdish MP rejected that claim, saying it is Erbil that is owed 12 trillion Iraqi dinars by Baghdad.