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Erbil and Baghdad Dispute Funding for Arab Refugees


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Erbil and Baghdad Dispute Funding for Arab Refugees

20/03/2012 03:28:00By NAWZAD MAHMOUD

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Shia Arab women driven out of their homes in Baghdad by militiamen stand in front of a tent in a refugee camp in Kut city in southern Iraq. Photo by Ayub Nuri.

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – A new dispute has arisen between Erbil and Baghdad over Arab refugees who have settled in the Kurdistan Region in the past few years.

The Iraqi minister of immigration, Dindar Najman Doski, says the Iraqi government expects the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to provide financial support for the Arab families.

“The Iraqi Finance Ministry wants KRG to provide service for the Arab refugee families, who are settled in Kurdistan, from the 17 percent of the annual budget it receives from Baghdad.”

Bayz Talabani, KRG finance minister, rejected this demand from Baghdad, saying, “We will not do that.”

Doski, a Kurd serving in the Iraqi government, said Baghdad’s request of the KRG is unfair.

“The Iraqi Finance Ministry doesn’t provide funds to help these refugees,” he said. “Instead, it demands that the KRG must take care of them out of its own budget. But that’s impossible because this budget is only for Kurdish people.”

At the peak of the sectarian war that swept Baghdad and the rest of Iraq between 2005 and 2008, many Arab families, among them Shia, Sunni and Christians, fled to the safety of the Kurdistan Region.

Doski said Baghdad’s expectations of the Kurdistan authorities have put his ministry in a difficult position.

According to statistics from the Iraqi Ministry of Immigration obtained by Rudaw, nearly 40,000 Arabs from the center and south of Iraq have fled to the Kurdistan Region, with the majority settled in Duhok province.

Doski believes the demand from Baghdad can reduce his ministry’s capacity to meet the refugees’ needs, saying, “We know that the refugees are living in bad conditions. They need services like education, hospitals, monthly income and transportation.”

Najiba Najib, a member of Iraq’s parliamentary finance committee, said Baghdad shouldn’t manipulate the refugee case.

“We must take this issue seriously and we shouldn’t allow the central government to link the refugees’ needs to the 17 percent (KRG) budget,” she said. “The KRG has continuously helped the refugees by providing them education, health care and settlements.”

Erbil and Baghdad are already dealing with a number of unresolved issues, such as the implementation of Article 140 regarding disputed territories and the country’s oil and gas law.

Najib fears that the Arab refugees, better known as internally displaced people (IDP), may become a new problem between the two authorities.

“Without even solving the current issues between the two sides, another issue has just emerged,” she said.

According to an agreement between Baghdad and Erbil, the Kurdistan Region receives 17 percent of Iraq’s annual budget for the three semi-autonomous Kurdish provinces.

Kurdish authorities maintain that it is Baghdad’s responsibility to allocate extra funding for the Arab families.

Talabani, KRG finance minister, said, “So far no one has discussed this issue with us. The central government has been taking care of the refugees in the past. No designated fund has been sent to KRG for the refugees from this year’s budget; that’s why this has nothing to do with us.”

In the meantime, Iraqi Deputy Finance Minister Fazil Nabi said it is the budget board that wants to oblige the KRG to support the refugees.

“This is not the demand of Iraqi finance minister,” Nabi said. “It is just the opinion of the general director of the budget department.”

Nabdi added, “We will solve this issue soon.”

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/4543.html

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