Parliamentary power: Kurds did not provide a convincing justification for non-commitment to pay oil money

[SocalDinar]

Baghdad-Erbil Reconciliation Reviving Region's Economy - Kurdish Party

 

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The reconciliation deal reached by Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan last fall has helped improve bilateral relations and revive the autonomous region's economy, Hoshawi Babakr, representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Russia, told Sputnik.

"After new Iraqi Prime Minister [Adel Abdul Mahdi] was elected [in October 2018], relations between Baghdad and Erbil changed a lot. [Kurdistan Regional Government's Prime Minister Nechirvan] Barzani's trip to Baghdad changed everything after their frank talks. Iraq now allocates a budget to Kurdistan; wages are being paid regularly to officials. This has resuscitated Kurdistan's economy. The agreement between Baghdad and Erbil works well", Babakr said.

 

 

© REUTERS / RODI SAID

Kurdish-led SDF Continue Offensive Against Daesh in Syria's Baghouz (VIDEO)

Erbil and Baghdad are now in the process of negotiating the terms pertaining to Iraqi Kurdistan's participation in Iraq's new government, which it is rebuilding itself after years of military conflict with the Daesh* terrorist group.

 

These developments come after bilateral relations significantly deteriorated in 2017, when the region held a referendum in a bid to secede from Iraq. Baghdad declared the referendum illegitimate and launched a military operation in the region, notably capturing the capital of the oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk.

Oil Production

Babakr also addressed the plans to increase oil production at the Kirkuk oil field up to 600,000 barrels per day (bpd).

"We plan oil production in Kirkuk to increase even further, up to 600,000 [bpd]. Back in the day, the norm was 500,000 barrels per day", he said.

 

The official expressed hope that Iraq would receive waivers from the OPEC-non-OPEC deal in order to boost its oil production.

"Iraq is OPEC's member and tries to comply with the agreement. But we see that Iran decreases production. Who will take its place? Probably Iraq will be given the opportunity because the country still has to recover its economy, destroyed cities. That's the way I see it", Babakr added.

 

© AFP 2019 / RYAD KRAMDI

'Supply Crisis Is Looming On Horizon' If OPEC+ Makes More Cuts - Energy Expert

Last December, the signatories to the oil output cut deal, which has been in force since 2017, agreed to reduce overall production by 1.2 million bpd for six months starting from 2019. OPEC member states pledged to cut their production by 800,000 bpd, while non-OPEC countries agreed to reduce the output by 400,000 bpd.

 

Oil exports from the Kirkuk oil field were disrupted after the Iraqi military carried out an operation in the area and took control of Kirkuk in the fall of 2017 in response to Iraqi Kurdistan's independence referendum.

 

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201903211073426593-baghdad-erbil-deal/

[ChuckFinley]

Thanks SD for posting. People playing nice in the sand box. Hmmmmmmmmm

[Gunnytex]

Everyone playing nice......Hurry Up.!   It won't last long .

[yota691]

Minister of the Kurdistan government calls for increasing pressure on Baghdad to collect class dues

 

 Twilight News    
 30 minutes ago

Shafaq News / The Minister of Martyrs and Anfal in the Kurdistan Region Mahmoud al-Haj Saleh on Friday the need to put pressure on the federal government to secure the dues of the victims of the victims of chemical bombardment.

"There should be more pressure on the Iraqi government to pay the dues of the chemical bombing victims in the Kurdistan region," he said in a speech during a ceremony marking the chemical bombardment of the Siosanan area.

He said chemical bombardment of Halabja, Siusanan and Anfal operations in other parts of the province should be defined as genocide.

Keywords: 

[yota691]

Minister of Finance responds to the allegations of cutting Baghdad salaries of employees of Kurdistan

 

money and business Economy News _ Baghdad The Minister of Finance, Fouad Hussein, on Tuesday, the allegations of cutting Baghdad salaries of employees of Kurdistan.  Hussein said in a statement received by "Economy News" a copy of it, in response to what circulated by some MPs and members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan on the intention of Baghdad to cut the salaries of employees of the region because of the Kurdistan government did not export 250 thousand barrels per day through the company Sumo, Responsibility on me as employees of other Iraqi provinces, and that the process of sending salaries will continue normally. "  He explained that "pay the salaries of employees of the Kurdistan region is fixed in the budget law and the Iraqi government is committed to the application of the law."  The minister expressed his hope that the new government will be formed "in the Kurdistan region as soon as possible for negotiations with Baghdad on the outstanding issues." Views 21   Date Added 26/03/2019

[Butifldrm]

Minister of Finance: Baghdad continues to send salaries of employees of Kurdistan

13:28 - 26/03/2019

0

 

  

Information / Baghdad ..

Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Finance Minister Fouad Hussein, on Tuesday, the continuation of the federal government to send salaries of employees of the Kurdistan region.

In response to what some deputies and members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (KRG) said about the intention of Baghdad to cut the salaries of the Kurdistan Region's employees because of the non-export of the Kurdistan Government 250 thousand barrels per day through the company Sumo that " Send the salaries of employees of the Kurdistan region a responsibility on me as employees of other Iraqi provinces, "noting that" the process of sending salaries will continue normally. "

He explained that "pay the salaries of employees of the Kurdistan region is installed in the budget law, and the Iraqi government is committed to the implementation of the law," expressing his hope "to form a new government in the Kurdistan region as soon as possible, to conduct negotiations with Baghdad on outstanding issues.

The Iraqi budget law of 2019, the allocation of 10 trillion and 844 billion dinars as a share of the Kurdistan region of the budget in the event of the territorial government to send 250 thousand barrels of oil, otherwise, Baghdad is committed to send 454 billion dinars per month to pay the salaries of employees and 68 billion dinars for the benefits of the Peshmerga. Ending / 25

https://www.almaalomah.com/2019/03/26/396054/

[yota691]

How many savings and unpaid salaries are paid by the Government of Kurdistan to employees?

 

 Twilight News    
 one hour ago

News / The provincial council of Erbil on Tuesday submitted a draft law to the Kurdistan Regional Government to resolve the issue of salaries paid and unpaid to employees.

The project stipulates that the provincial government will pay the money saved, unpaid salaries through non-payment of wages of water, electricity and other services in addition to carrying the monthly installments of the staff to the Housing Authority and public and private companies.

"The Kurdistan Regional Government received this project is very important," said the head of the provincial council Ali Rashid in a press conference held today, "saying that" the first phase of the project provides that the Ministry of Finance and Economy in the provincial government to pay housing, marriage, education and other salaries, Paid. "

On other provinces in the region, Rashid said that the Council of the province of Arbil will coordinate with the provinces of Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah to adopt this project.

The President of the provincial council that the Kurdistan Regional Government with 33 salaries, and 7 salaries were not fully paid.

 The President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, announced in the eighth month of March, the abolition of savings of salaries of employees after three years of work because of the cutting of Baghdad's fiscal budget, in addition to the war against the organization of the preacher, as well as the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people to cities and provinces of The rest of Iraq and Syria after the militants' takeover.

Keywords: 

[6ly410]

Barzani reminds Abadi, 'Mosul wouldn’t have been liberated without Peshmerga'

 Sangar Ali |

52 minutes ago

 

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/67728d5d-e982-461f-a9f3-9f7eada50c54

 

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Haider al-Abadi, former Iraqi prime minister and head of the Nasr (Victory) Coalition. (Photo: Reuters)

 

 

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The former prime minister of Iraq and the head of the Nasr (Victory) coalition in the Iraqi Parliament, Haider al-Abadi, wants to destroy the constructive environment between Erbil and Baghdad following last year’s Iraqi elections, Masoud Barzani said on Tuesday.

Barzani’s response came following Abadi’s recent interview with Iraq’s Al-Dijlah television channel on Saturday where he spoke about different topics in the country, including the Peshmerga, Kurds, and Kirkuk.

Barzani, the President of the leading Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and former President of the autonomous Kurdistan Region, described Abadi’s remarks on Kirkuk, Peshmerga forces, and the people of the Kurdistan Region as “inappropriate.”

“The purpose of those comments are personal and meant to destroy the positive environment that has evolved between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad following the Iraqi elections,” the senior Kurdish leader said in a statement.

He mentioned that during Iraq’s May 2018 parliamentary elections, the components in the country “punished” Abadi and all those who intended to spark a civil war, destroy the coexistence, violated the constitution, and committed crimes in Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu. He referred to Abadi’s electoral list which failed to gain the majority of votes needed to secure the former prime minister’s second term in office.

On Oct. 16, 2017, Iraqi forces and Shia-dominated militias attacked and took over Kirkuk and other disputed territories. Peshmerga withdrew from those areas with no major clashes to strengthen their lines and defend the Kurdistan Region.

During the Sept. 30, 2018, regional parliamentary elections, the people of Kurdistan rewarded Peshmerga and all the defenders of the Kurdistan Region, Barzani said, referring to the result of the polls which increased the KDP’s number of seats from 38 to 45 in the 111-seat parliament for standing up against Iraq’s Oct. 16 attacks.

“Abadi was a disloyal person toward the Peshmerga and the people of Kurdistan,” he continued.

“If it were not for the Peshmerga, a person like him [Abadi] would never have been able to visit Mosul to steal the success over Da’esh [ISIS] and use it to promote himself.”

Barzani currently holds no official governmental post but continues to remain an important Kurdish political figure in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.

He stressed that the Peshmerga forces “engraved” Abadi’s plans to attack the Kurdistan Region just as they had done in the past against other enemies and former Iraqi regimes.

“Abadi himself knows more than anyone else what Peshmerga did to him and his plans.”

In the past, senior Kurdish leaders have said Abadi’s military attack was not meant to control the disputed territories alone, but also the Kurdistan Region as an entity.

Barzani praised the current positive ties between Erbil and Baghdad and noted that “spiteful faces and egoistic rule breakers should not have any role in” Iraq which is in a different situation compared to a year ago.

“The current phase is a phase of responsibility, strengthening the principles of coexistence, rooting partnership, consensus, and balance in Iraq,” he noted.

Since Iraq’s current Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi took office in October 2018, relations between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq have considerably improved.

[6ly410]

Abadi Hopes to Harm Relations Between Erbil and Baghdad: Barzani Headquarter

 

 Basnews English 26/03/2019 - 17:09 Published in Kurdistan

 

 

 

ERBIL - Prominent Kurdish leader and former president of Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani, has criticized Haider al-Abadi over his recent remarks about Kurdistan Region, Peshmerga forces and Kirkuk, saying that Abadi hopes to damage the relations between Erbil and Baghdad.

During a recent interview with Dijla news channel, Haider al-Abadi, the leader of a political faction in Iraq’s parliament and the former prime minister of Iraq, defended his government’s harsh and retaliatory measures agains the people of Kurdistan Region after 2017’s independence referendum. Back then, he moved a massive army, backed by the pro-Iranian Shi’ite militias of Hashd al-Shaabi, to attack the Peshmerga forces in Kirkuk.

He argued that the move was appropriate as “a group” within the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) coordinated with Baghdad to hand over Kirkuk “without bloodshed”. However, the PUK faction’s cooperation with Baghdad was viewed by the people of Kurdistan as a national treason.

“Unfortunately, [Haider al-Abadi] made some remarks and judgements about Kirkuk, Peshmerga and the people of Kurdistan which could be understood as an attempt to destroy a positive environment created between Erbil and Baghdad after the [parliamentary] elections in Iraq,” Barzani’s headquarter said in an official statement on Tuesday.

It believes that Abadi’s remarks were made “to serve his personal interests” only.

“It is clear to everyone that the components of Iraq, during the last elections, punished Abadi and all those who planned a civil war, disrupt coexistence, violated the Constitution, committed crimes in Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu, and those who were spiteful to the people of Kurdistan,” reads the statement.

It described Abadi as “unfaithful” to the Peshmerga, reminding that without the Kurdish forces, Abadi would have never had the chance to overcome the Islamic State (IS) and visit Mosul again, and, also, use the victory to show off on a personal account.

During the interview, Abadi described the Kurds who voted “Yes” to Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum as “extremists”, and said he did not lose the hearts of the entire Kurdish people, “but of only those who voted for the referendum”, which was 92.73% of the total votes.

“Those described as ‘extremists’ by Abadi, are respected by the people of Kurdistan. Those who cooperated with Abadi, are traitors.”

The statement goes on as saying that the Peshmerga forces of Kurdistan nipped former regimes’ conspiracies in the bud with their courage and bravery, and “Abadi knows better than anyone what the Peshmerga did to him and his plot”.

“Everyone should known that a new environment has emerged now that does not let spiteful and selfish faces to have a role. This stage is for shouldering responsibilities, developing the principles of coexistence, and implementing partnership, consensus and balance in Iraq,” the statement concluded.

http://www.basnews.com/index.php/en/news/kurdistan/510430

[6ly410]

KDP leader Barzani blames Abadi for trying to harm 'positive' atmosphere in Iraq

By Rudaw 58 minutes ago 

402Views

 

KDP President Masoud Barzani (left) meets with Nasr alliance leader Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad on November 23, 2018. File photo: Rudaw TV

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Former Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi’s recent comments about Kirkuk were aimed at “destroying the positive atmosphere post-election” in the country, KDP President Masoud Barzani claimed on Tuesday.
 

Abadi “has talked about Kirkuk, Peshmerga and the people of Kurdistan in an inappropriate way in an interview that aired on Al Dijlah TV on Saturday, aiming to destroy the positive atmosphere post-election between the [Kurdistan] Region and Baghdad,” read a statement by Barzani’s office.

Prior to the Mosul operation in a move widely described as "historic cooperation" between Erbil and Baghdad, former president Barzani and Abadi struck a deal that allowed Iraqi forces to cross Peshmerga lines so they could commence the liberation of Mosul from the east. 

In his statement, Barzani described Abadi as an “unfaithful person for the Peshmerga and the people of Kurdistan,” adding if it weren't for the Kurdish armed forces the former PM “would never see Mosul in order to steal the victory over Daesh in Mosul for himself and brag about it.”
 

The Battle for Mosul against the Islamic State (ISIS) began in October 16, 2016, and ended on July 20, 2017.

Abadi, list head of the Victory Alliance that won 42 seats in last year's parliamentary election, had said in an interview with al-Dijlah that some members of the KDP and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) are “extremists.”

He further talked about the federal takeover of disputed Kirkuk in October 2017 and the withdrawal of Peshmerga forces.

Abadi claimed the Peshmerga who didn't fight did so “to avoid the bloodshed of people and prevent a destructive war” while others in the KDP and PUK "are really extremists.”

“Those people who Abadi describes as extremists are considered by Kurdistan's people as faithful and patriotic,” Barzani stated.

Those who “coordinated with Abadi are traitors and have sold out their homeland,” referring to people in the PUK who allegedly made a last minute deal with Baghdad to hand over the disputed city without a fight.

It is widely rumored that Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), moderated a deal between both Iraqi government and the PUK. At the time unverified photos emerged of him in the PUK powerbase of Sulaimani, Kirkuk, and Baghdad.

The former Iraqi PM denied the presence of any agreement with the PUK for Kirkuk and the role of Soleimani.
 

Barzani praised the post-Abadi era in Iraq, saying that “everyone shall know well that another condition has appeared in Iraq where the spiteful, selfish and law-breaking faces shall not have roles. The current stage is the stage of responsibility and bolstering the principles of coexistence and establishing partnership, unity, and balance in Iraq.”

 

Hoshyar Zebari, a member of the KDP Politburo, claimed in a tweet on Sunday that Abadi’s “anti-Kurdish policies has cost him a second term by ill-advised local and [international] advisors.”

Although Abadi's list finished third in the election, it performed far better than former PM Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law Coalition. Maliki heads Iraq's powerful Dawa Party of which Abadi is a member.

Abadi has continued to play a public role, meeting with foreign diplomats, military officials, and other political elite — leading many to believe he will again pursue a post in government in the future. http://www.rudaw.net/mobile/english/kurdistan/260320191

 

 

[6ly410]

Kurdish officials, lawmakers reject rumors of KRG budget cut by Iraq

Sangar Ali |

5 hours ago

 

 

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The flags of Iraq and Kurdistan fly side by side in the disputed province of Kirkuk. (Photo: Philipp Breu)

 

 

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdish officials have denied rumors the Iraqi government is prepared to cut the Kurdistan Region’s national budget share, underlining that Baghdad will continue to distribute the salaries of public employees on time.

Some Kurdish lawmakers recently relayed to local media threats that Baghdad would cut the salaries of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) employees because the KRG has not handed part of its oil export to Iraq’s state oil marketing company – SOMO – based on an article in the country’s 2019 budget bill.

After a majority vote in the Iraqi Parliament on Jan. 24, lawmakers approved Iraq’s 2019 budget bill following months of disagreements between different parliamentary blocs.

According to the law, the KRG must hand over 250,000 barrels of oil per day to SOMO as well as pass local revenues to Iraq’s treasury. The Kurdish government has yet to implement the oil article.

So far, Iraqi government officials have issued no comments about a cut in the monthly salaries for KRG public servants.

Bashid Haddad, the deputy speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, told reporters in Baghdad on Tuesday that some lawmakers are trying to stir animosity among the KRG’s public servants regarding the payment of their future salaries.

“I reassure the people of the Kurdistan Region that Iraq will continue to distribute their salaries every month just like other cities in Iraq,” Haddad said.

“The Iraqi government has delivered the salaries of KRG employees to the Kurdistan Region for the past three months and will continue to do so,” he added.

“It’s true. The KRG has not handed a portion of the oil export to Baghdad yet, but if the federal government wanted to cut salaries, they would have done so in the last three months.”

Budget, oil, and disputed territories have been one of the long-standing issues between Erbil and Baghdad since the fall of the authoritarian system in Iraq in 2003. KRG officials are hopeful they can resolve the disputes with the new federal government headed by Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.

Hevidar Ahmed, a lawmaker in the Kurdistan Region Parliament, told Kurdistan 24 that a high-level delegation from the KRG Council of Oil and Gas would visit Baghdad soon to eliminate uncertainties and doubts about the budget cut rumors.

Fuad Hussein, the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and Minister of Finance, explained that the salaries of KRG employees are part of the 2019 budget law, and the Iraqi government has a responsibility to implement that law.

“There is no threat to the salaries of KRG employees,” he told Kurdistan 24, noting that both Erbil and Baghdad have to begin their negotiations soon, particularly a dialogue about the handover of part of the KRG’s oil export to SOMO.

Hoshyar Abdullah, a Kurdish lawmaker in the Iraqi Parliament, suggested there is a “political move” in the parliament led by former Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi to use the Kurdistan Region’s files, namely the oil case, against current Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi and destabilize his tenure.

“Abadi remains ambitious about the possibility of returning to his post as prime minister,” Abdullah told Kurdistan 24.

Ties between Erbil and Baghdad reached a breaking point in late 2017 after the Iraqi government, headed by then-prime minister Abadi, used military force to attack the Kurdistan Region in the wake of a historic independence referendum.

Since Abdul-Mahdi took office in October 2018, tensions between Erbil and Baghdad have eased, and relations have considerably evolved. Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has repeatedly expressed his strong support for Abdul-Mahdi and his cabinet.

Most Kurdish officials and lawmakers are hopeful of Abdul-Mahdi’s capability and desire to resolve disputes between Erbil and Baghdad peacefully, unlike his predecessor.

In a recent tweet, Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s former foreign affairs and finance minister, charged that Abadi’s “anti-Kurdish policies” by “ill-advised” local and international advisors cost him a second term in office.

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/ea535fff-8fdd-4988-9f44-0d9cab4e8b3c

[DoD]

2 hours ago, 6ly410 said:

KDP leader Barzani blames Abadi for trying to harm 'positive' atmosphere in Iraq

 

 

Barzani, you don’t need any help trying to harm the atmosphere in Iraq you do a real good job of that on your own. 

Remember that referendum that Abadi warned you against voting on in Kurdistan? Didn’t think so you corrupt POS...

[tigergorzow]

6ly410 Thanks,  DV,  KRG & GOI & Parliament better hurry the heck up and pass some important laws that benefit all Iraqis.  "HCL" , 140, etc.  Most importantly increase the purchasing power of the IQD.  Always Keeping the faith!!!!!

 

GO RV / RI

[tigergorzow]

10 minutes ago, DoD said:

Barzani, you don’t need any help trying to harm the atmosphere in Iraq you do a real good job of that on your own. 

Remember that referendum that Abadi warned you against voting on in Kurdistan? Didn’t think so you corrupt POS...

DoD Agree,  I believe wholeheartedly the Barzani's, Talabani's, Zebari are all corrupt and crooks.  They have been stealing the wealth from the KRG and the citizens for years.  Sorry arses...😁😁

 

GO JUSTICE 

 

GO RV / RI

 

 

[yota691]

27-03-2019 10:47 AM

Al-Abbadi coalition: We are against the mafias of the Kurdish parties, whether Arab or Arab

 

 

BAGHDAD / 
Al-Nasr coalition said on Wednesday that the policy of the coalition was not against the Kurdish people, but against the mafia of the Kurdish parties, whether Arab. 
The coalition said in a statement received by the "News" a copy of it, "The victory coalition confirms to the Iraqi public opinion, the policies of Abadi and the coalition of victory was not against the Kurdish people fighting and deprived, but against the mafias parties, Kurdish or Arab 
. "The public opinion remembers that Abadi was the one who fired the salaries of the citizens of the province last year after the parties controlling the region squandered the oil and non-oil resources, and considered them to be their property and to follow them, and starved the citizens and deprived them of their wealth," asserting that "power and wealth are the property of the people, And personal. "
The statement added that "the coalition of victory with justice, equality and national Iraqi without any ethnic or sectarian discrimination, and that he was and will remain with the people of different religions and nationalities and sects and against the sectarian political settlement sectarian party that destroyed and will destroy the country."

[yota691]

Nasr Abbadi in response to Barzani's office: We are against the mafia parties

 

Policy  ,   2019/03/27 16:40   , The number of readings: 48 

 

 

 

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq -

"The policies of Abbadi and the Al-Nasr coalition have never been against the Kurdish people who are fighting and deprived, but against the mafia of the parties, whether Kurdish or Arab," the victory coalition said in a statement issued today after Barzani's recent remarks. The statement added: The public remembers that Abadi was the one who fired salaries to the citizens of the region last year after the parties controlling the region had squandered oil and non-oil resources, and considered them to be their property and to follow them, and starved the citizens and deprived them of their wealth. He added that we assert that power and wealth are the property of the people, Party and personal feudalism. The statement concluded by saying that the coalition of victory with justice, equality and national Iraqi without any ethnic or sectarian discrimination, and that it was and will remain with the people of different nationalities and nationalities and sects and against the political encroachment sectarian sectarianism that destroyed and will destroy the country.

 

[yota691]

After Abadi exposed the first deal with Kurdistan ... Kurdish Finance Minister: Sinar 10 trillion to the region!

 

Policy  ,   2019/03/27 12:12   , The number of readings: 1461 

 

 

 

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq -

A day after the former Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi, exposing the secrets of the major financial deal held by the current government with the region, and the delivery of nearly one billion US dollars of oil revenues to the region for distribution as salaries to employees in arrears, in a move considered to save the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Strongly in the recent elections that took place there, the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Finance, Fouad Hussein, that the payment of salaries in the Kurdistan region will continue because it is installed in the federal budget law, according to his claim, recognizing at the same time that Arbil refrained from Tin The oil deal with Baghdad to deliver oil extracted from oil wells under the control of the regional government. Hussein said that " The share of the entire Kurdistan region of the budget is about 10 trillion dinars, but the amount spent was the salaries of employees, while the other section was not disbursed, that is, half of the share of the Kurdistan Region has not been disbursed, and this is related to that issue (delivery of 250,000 barrels of oil) : "There is a new government in Baghdad has a clear strategy, seeking to apply in the next four years, and is related to the reconstruction of the Iraqi economy." Hussein explained that "the salaries of the people of Kurdistan part of the federal budget law, and we are working under the law, Despite differences, this is one of our legal tasks and we will carry it out and consider it a waste The salaries of the sons of Kurdistan is our duty, "and explained that" in relation to the issue of oil, it is necessary to start as soon as negotiations between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the federal government in Baghdad. " In response to a question about the salaries of the Kurdistan region and revenues of 250,000 barrels of oil in the region, the Iraqi Finance Minister said: "As far as the Federal Ministry of Finance and my responsibility, we have to pay salaries and we did so and did my duty and I will continue, "The door is now open and we must continue this dialogue, and all matters related to local imports, taxes and customs should be presented at the negotiating table and agreed upon, and the issue of oil needs an agreement that is committed to both parties." Hussein said that: "The share of the Kurdistan region of the full budget of about 10 trillion dinars, but the amount spent was the salaries of employees, while the other section was not disbursed, that is, half of the share of the Kurdistan Region has not been disbursed, and this is related to that issue (delivery of 250,000 barrels Oil) ", also said:"

[6ly410]

  REUTERS/Azad Lashkari

REPORT  199 / MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA 27 MARCH 2019

After Iraqi Kurdistan’s Thwarted Independence Bid 

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/199-after-iraqi-kurdistans-thwarted-independence-bid

Backlash to the 2017 independence referendum bolstered family rule within Iraq’s two main Kurdish parties. Internal democracy has eroded; ties between the parties have frayed. Only strong institutions in Erbil and renewed inter-party cooperation can help Iraqi Kurdistan to reach a sustainable settlement with Baghdad on outstanding issues.  

•  

 

What’s new? Elections in 2018 confirmed that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) remain the dominant forces in Iraqi Kurdish politics. But fallout from the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum has undermined inter-party cooperation and thus weakened the two parties’ bargaining position vis-à-vis Baghdad.

Why does it matter? Depending on how KDP and PUK leaders renegotiate their relationship, overdue reforms in the Kurdish region and talks with Baghdad could both move forward. Progress would allow Kurdish leaders to minimise the region’s vulnerability to external threats and help it recover from the damage caused by the referendum.

What should be done? Backed by the U.S. and EU member states, the UN should seize the opportunities presented by government formation in Erbil to encourage institutional reforms in the Kurdish region and a sustainable settlement with Baghdad on the two main outstanding issues: revenue sharing and the status of the disputed territories.

 

The furious reaction to the September 2017 Kurdish independence referendum – in the wake of which Iraqi forces recaptured most of the country’s disputed territories – has forced the leadership of Iraqi Kurdistan’s two main political parties to consider rebuilding their partnership and jointly re-engaging with Baghdad about outstanding differences. These steps are a strategic necessity if these parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), are to advance the Kurdish region’s interests. Yet inter- and intra-party rivalries, as well as leadership contests, are undermining any inclination in that direction. The referendum backlash also accelerated the erosion of both the parties’ internal democratic processes and the region’s governing institutions, while strengthening family-based rule. Any international effort to advance negotiations between Erbil and Baghdad should begin by encouraging renewed KDP-PUK partnership and reinvigorating the push for political reform in the Kurdish region.

The year 2017 was disastrous for Iraqi Kurdistan. The KDP and PUK had hoped to trade their fight alongside the Western coalition to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) for Western support for the Kurdish independence drive. But the two parties frittered away any advantage they might have derived from the battlefield victory over ISIS with an ill-timed, KDP-led referendum initiative. Not only did they lose control of large swathes of the disputed territories and incur the wrath of just about every important global or regional power except Israel, but they also deepened political polarisation in the Kurdish region amid reciprocal cries of betrayal when the curtain came down on the referendum gamble.

In October 2018, the appointment of Adel Abdul Mahdi, a man known as friendly to the Kurds, as Iraq’s prime minister presented the Kurds with an opportunity to settle outstanding issues such as the disputed territories and revenue sharing. Yet the KDP and PUK cannot seize it if their engagement in Baghdad remains disjointed. For the time being, they seem more inclined to prioritise unilateral deals with powerful Shiite political-military networks in Baghdad. These may deliver quick but only fragile gains.

The two parties’ erstwhile strategic partnership, forged by their respective leaders Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani more than a decade ago and an anchor of the region’s stability since then, did not survive the turmoil of 2017 and Talabani’s death that same year. It is proving difficult to resuscitate the partnership or to create a solid alternative foundation for the region’s future. The intra-Kurdish rift complicates relations not only with the Iraqi prime minister, but also with the new president, Barham Salih of the PUK, whose appointment the KDP opposed. Iraqi Kurdistan’s principal weakness is the fact that, since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has failed to build institutions that could regulate the region’s political system autonomous of the two former rebel parties. Today the region is moving backward. Both institutions and political parties are in crisis, hostage to a web of party figures who are inter-connected through family and/or patronage interests.

The problem starts with the parties themselves, and the erosion of internal democratic procedures that could ensure stable leadership renewal. Leadership councils and political bureaus have ceased to perform as platforms of consultation. Instead, personal and family interests prevail in putting forward candidates for office or taking policy decisions. If this trend continues, it will further empower leaders who think that Kurdistan could re-emerge from the post-referendum crisis through party and family networks rather than intra- and inter-party cooperation and accountable institutions. Hardliners also aim at regaining ground lost after the referendum through party-led deals with Shiite parties in Baghdad rather than by engaging, jointly, with the Abdul Mahdi government. Such deals empower parties over institutions in both the Kurdish region and Baghdad and thus diminish the prospects of either the Erbil or Baghdad governments delivering on negotiated settlements on outstanding issues.

 The course of Iraqi Kurdistan’s politics depends on whether reformist or hard-line forces prevail within the two leading parties.  

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In 2018, national and regional parliamentary elections reaffirmed the KDP’s and PUK’s dominance in Iraqi Kurdistan, despite the referendum stumble. They won to a large extent because the population appears to feel alienated from politics, and thus resigned to the KDP-PUK condominium, while the opposition is divided and short on strategic vision. Yet the continuation of politics as usual promises no solution for the region’s deep political crisis. Reforms that would reinstitute oversight mechanisms, such as independent commissions and an independent judiciary authority to check the executive, are overdue.

The course of Iraqi Kurdistan’s politics depends on whether reformist or hardline forces prevail within the two leading parties, the KDP in particular because of its overall dominance. So does the course of talks with Baghdad. If KDP reformists are able to overcome party and family allegiances and make common cause with kindred spirits in the PUK, they could together push for institutional changes in the KRG and open the way for negotiations with Baghdad on a host of outstanding issues. But if anti-reform elements impose themselves in the KDP, the party might try to slake its apparent thirst for hegemony in the Kurdish region, as exemplified by the referendum drive. Such a move, in turn, would bolster the PUK’s hardliners.

International partners that have heavily invested in the Kurdish region in the fight against ISIS should be concerned that the region’s democratic governance and its institutions’ strength will backslide now that the jihadist group is defeated. To prevent such regression, they should encourage revival of oversight mechanisms that would enable the Kurdish population to hold their leaders accountable.

The U.S., whose influence in Iraq largely depends on smooth intra-Kurdish cooperation in both Erbil and Baghdad, should be particularly concerned by this matter. So, too, should EU member states, which are committed to the strategic objective of strengthening a balanced, accountable and democratic system in Iraq. The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq will also need intra-Kurdish cooperation as it readies itself to mediate discussions between Erbil and Baghdad on disputed territories and revenue-sharing.

These institutions could help the Kurdish region overcome internal divisions, preserve accountability mechanisms vis-à-vis an increasingly disenfranchised population and reinvigorate reformist elements who are better positioned and prepared to negotiate with Baghdad’s central authorities. This way, the self-inflicted wound of the independence referendum will have a chance to heal and the Kurdish body politic to regenerate.

Erbil/Brussels, 27 March 2019

I.

A mere two weeks following the Kurdish independence vote on 25 September 2017, the Iraqi army assisted by paramilitary forces pushed into Kirkuk in a surprise move. It seized not only the city and its oil fields, but most of the adjoining “disputed territories” – mixed-population areas along the boundary of the Kurdish region – from the two main Kurdish parties’ forces, which had held these areas since the arrival of ISIS in June 2014. Moreover, the Council of Representatives in Baghdad voted to cut the region’s share of the national budget from 17 to 12 per cent.

These twin developments deprived an already economically troubled region of its main sources of income.Kurdish leaders took withering criticism: they had raised popular expectations by staging the referendum, only to fail to deliver. The loss of Kirkuk and its oil wealth, control of which many saw – and still see – as the main instrument for gaining independence was a particularly sharp blow. It looked as if the two parties had surrendered the gains they had made since 1991, when the region first struggled free of the Saddam Hussein regime.

On 1 November 2017, Masoud Barzani, the referendum’s principal champion, announced he was stepping down from his post as the Kurdish region’s president. A year later, he declared:

The referendum’s timing may not have been ideal, but it was our right to state our will. We lost less than if we had lost our will and determination. … With the referendum, international principles and rights, such as the right to self-determination, proved to be just empty talk with no basis in reality. We now comprehend that we have to stand by ourselves and be strong on our own.

Barzani’s seeming defiance notwithstanding, the referendum backlash, coming on the heels of four years of war against the Islamic State (ISIS), forced Kurdish leaders to take a more pragmatic approach in domestic and regional politics.

Masoud Barzani’s resignation raised the political profile of the region’s prime minister, his nephew Nechirvan Barzani. Known to have quietly opposed the decision to hold a referendum, the prime minister reached out to parties at home and abroad to mend frayed relationships. He also continued to pursue a program of economic reform and put payment of public-sector salaries back on schedule. A Western diplomat in Erbil summed it up: “We thought Iraqi Kurdistan would be no more. Yet within a couple of months, Nechirvan had been received in Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and Kurdistan had once again placed itself on the map”.

Yet this turn to pragmatism was short-lived. Hardline figures who had encouraged the referendum, especially in the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), rebounded after the two main Kurdish parties won elections in the absence of viable opposition. Iraq’s parliamentary election on 12 May 2018, and the elections for the Kurdish parliament on 30 September 2018, marked a renaissance for the KDP and, to a lesser extent, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Suleimaniya. In both elections, the KDP and PUK won the largest number of votes in the region, albeit amid accusations of fraud. The KDP, in particular, saw its dominance in the Kurdish region reaffirmed in the general elections, and emerged as the undisputed winner in the regional polls. This triumph placed it firmly in the driver’s seat for government formation in the region.

On 3 December 2018, the KDP nominated Nechirvan Barzani to succeed his uncle as regional president and Masrour Barzani, Masoud Barzani’s son, for the position of prime minister. (Both candidates are awaiting a vote in the Kurdish parliament on forming the government.) The latter nomination signalled a comeback of the party’s hardline factions led by Masrour, who had been in charge of the region’s security apparatus. Arguably, the premiership is more powerful than the presidency now that Masoud Barzani is no longer holding it and instead has become the “power behind the throne” as KDP leader. The PUK, in turn, regained its status as the region’s second largest party (which it had lost to the pro-reform Gorran movement in the 2013 elections) and consolidated its standing in Baghdad, securing the presidency of Iraq for its candidate, Barham Salih.

The selection of Adel Abdul Mahdi, a man known to be friendly to the Kurds, as Iraq’s next prime minister, and growing intra-Shiite divisions, together opened new opportunities for the two Kurdish parties to regain some of the political ground in Baghdad they had lost in the referendum’s aftermath. Yet this prospect largely hinges on their ability to establish a stable balance of power in the Kurdish region that translates into a working partnership in the Iraqi capital.

II.

In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, a U.S. protective umbrella allowed the KDP and PUK to consolidate their control in the Kurdish region, establishing the basis for an autonomous administration – the KRG – in their respective zones of influence. After the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, the two parties struck a strategic partnership in 2007 that provided for equal shares in governance and resource allocation, with the declared objective of consolidating the region’s autonomous status and build up a unified administration and security apparatus. Yet the two parties’ stranglehold on the region’s institutions prevented other parties from emerging as effective alternatives to the KDP/PUK, encouraged high-level corruption and plunged the region’s political system into a crisis once the strategic partnership fell apart in 2017.

 Family relations, instead, have become the strongest currency of Kurdish politics.  

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The KDP-PUK power balance was already under strain at the time when ISIS rushed into Mosul and adjoining areas in 2014, threatening the region. International support that poured in for the fight against ISIS disrupted the balance further. This support empowered cliques of party figures with weapons and money, also undermining the parties’ internal democratic procedures.

A.Family Affairs

The independence referendum and its aftermath concluded a chapter in Kurdish history wherein the KRG was to turn the region into a functioning parliamentary democracy with a consolidated federal status in Iraq. Instead, the two main parties have gradually fallen hostage to networks that usually comprise members of the same family. Party institutions such as leadership councils and political bureaus have ceased to carry out their designated function, and party congresses are no longer forums for consultation and decision-making. Family relations, instead, have become the strongest currency of Kurdish politics, and informal personal agreements have replaced formal mechanisms of decision-making.

Since Iraqi Kurdistan started to organise itself as an autonomous region after the popular uprising against the Saddam regime in 1991, members of the same family have traditionally held important roles within the political parties as well as in KRG institutions. These institutions gained strength whenever networks cut across party or family boundaries, creating synergies between figures sharing the same policy approach or interests. For example, since 2014, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, despite being a Barzani and deputy leader of the KDP under his uncle, has worked in close cooperation with Qubad Talabani, son of the PUK’s historical leader Jalal Talabani and the region’s deputy prime minister, acting as a counterweight to harder-line elements in both the PUK and KDP, including in the Barzani family.

The independence referendum outlined more clearly the boundaries between a group of “reformists”, whose connections transcend family and party, and “hardliners”, who have entrenched themselves in family and party politics. Most of the reformists opposed the vote (even if they ended up casting theirs in favour), not because they were, or are, against Kurdish independence but because they saw asserting it as an ill-timed blunder, wrought by Masoud Barzani’s over-reliance on foreign advisers and hardline senior party cadres. By contrast, hardliners wholeheartedly supported the referendum decision. While on the political sidelines, the PUK’s leadership also fractured between referendum champions and critics.

Even if the reformists guided the region out of the post-referendum crisis, family-based politics re-emerged as the preeminent anchor of continuity. The KDP rebounded, confident that its family-based decision-making structures would preserve party unity and compensate for the fragility of the region’s governing institutions, which the party has weakened with this very approach. Within the KDP, family-based politics serve to moderate and balance the political rivalry between Masrour and Nechirvan Barzani, both potential heirs to Masoud. Despite stepping down from the presidency, Masoud Barzani re-emerged stronger, still serving as KDP leader, and acting as linchpin of political deals within the KDP and beyond. In the words of a KRG official from the KDP: “Everyone thought that Barzani would be weakened after the referendum. Instead, he has emerged stronger than ever. The who’s who of all Kurdistan are coming to the presidential palace, despite the fact that he is no longer president”. A KDP member said:

Decision-making in the KDP is handled by a small circle of experienced party members – not necessarily from the same family – mainly [senior leaders] Masoud Barzani, Fazel Mirani and Nawzat Ali. Yet it’s family ties that allow Masoud to keep intact the party structures and manage internal rivalries.

The PUK, which split from the KDP in 1975 in protest against the KDP’s family/tribal-based politics, has come to operate on the same principle. Since its co-founder Jalal Talabani fell ill in 2013, the party has been riven by competition between his heirs and party leaders who resist being subservient to the Talabani dynasty. A PUK member said: “Those who have been PUK politburo members for 40 years have a hard time accepting that the Talabani family’s newborns will take over the party”. As a result of these divisions, feuds have broken out between the Talabanis and other powerful families and within the Talabani family itself. In the aftermath of the Kurdish regional elections in September 2018, the KDP moved to expand its influence over the PUK by fuelling the inter-family competition that pits the Talabanis against the family of another historical PUK leader, Kosrat Rasoul Ali. The KDP attempt backfired, as the Talabanis managed to restore party unity through an inter-family deal that brought back Barham Salih (a PUK defector previously close to Rasoul) by successfully nominating him as the Kurds’ candidate for the Iraqi presidency.

Even Gorran, a movement that split from the PUK over opposition to the family-based patronage that structures both the PUK and KDP, is undergoing a similar debate, as the two sons of its founder, Nowshirwan Mustafa Amin, who died in 2017, have taken charge of the group’s finances.

B.The Two Main Parties: A Shifting Balance

Both internal and external factors – the KDP’s ambition of hegemony in the Kurdish region, the PUK’s post-Talabani succession crisis and the war against ISIS – have undermined the KDP-PUK power balance, accelerating the Kurdish region’s downward slide. Following the PUK’s disastrous performance in the 2013 regional elections, the KDP formed a government in partnership with Gorran. For the first time, it opted to ally with a group other than the PUK, hoping to extend its clout across the region by widening the split between the PUK and Gorran in Suleimaniya.

 Calls for “unity” cannot obscure the fact that the relationship between the two parties is lopsided.  

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This move wound up threatening the region’s stability. It stiffened Gorran’s anti-establishment posture because, despite being in government, the party lacked real power within KRG institutions to counter-balance the KDP, and it pushed the PUK into a closer relationship with Iran. In late 2015, the Kurdish parliament stopped convening following a dispute between the KDP and Gorran (which held the post of parliament speaker) over the extension of Masoud Barzani’s presidency. By the end of 2017, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani was governing without a functioning parliament, without a president and with a cabinet that had lost six ministers (four of Gorran and two of the Islamist Komala party).

In the immediate post-referendum period, the KDP’s ambition to monopolise the region’s leadership and the PUK’s resistance thereto have prevented the two parties from finding a new power balance. Yet the post-referendum crisis created a convergence of interests among leading KDP-PUK figures, encouraging them to cooperate in order to hold on to power. Following the September 2018 regional elections, leadership figures in both parties referred to a “need for unity” through renewed partnership. A KDP member said before the elections:

After the elections, we plan to reinvest in a joint KDP-PUK administration. The KDP has no better alternative than the PUK, and vice versa. I expect that parties such as Gorran that left the government will also be eager to rejoin and obtain cabinet positions.

Yet the clock cannot be turned back that easily. Much has changed since the heyday of the KDP-PUK strategic partnership. The parties have fragmented internally and become more dependent on neighbouring powers, Iran and Turkey in particular, while Talabani’s death removed a pillar of the partnership. Members of both the KDP and PUK may agree that renewed partnership is indispensable if the parties are to continue to dominate Kurdish politics and contain fragmentation, but they are far from agreeing on what type of balance a prospective new arrangement should strike. The KDP’s hardline factions, in particular, have ambitions of their own: for them, a political system dominated by a single party would be more effective and stable than one with several competing political parties and centres of decision-making.

Calls for “unity” cannot obscure the fact that the relationship between the two parties is lopsided. In the current negotiations over the formation of a new regional government, the KDP seems to want to bring in the PUK once more. From the KDP’s strategic viewpoint, this manoeuvre may make sense: the PUK, with military and governance institutions of its own, cannot easily be bypassed. At the same time, it is too politically weak to effectively challenge KDP dominance.

On 4 March, after six months of negotiations over government formation, the KDP and PUK brokered a deal that may help settle the dispute about cabinet positions. It does not, however, constitute a new strategic agreement that would commit the parties to a shared vision of KRG governance and external relations. In this sense, the deal appears to be the outcome of the KDP’s ability to leverage its strategic advantage after the September 2018 elections, and does little to rebuild Kurdish unity or Kurdish strength vis-à-vis Baghdad.

To balance the KDP’s position, hardline figures within the PUK are already banking on the party’s own reinvigorated role in Baghdad – through the newly won presidency of Barham Salih – which has grown in importance now that Iraqi Kurdistan is compelled once more to make amends with the central government. In turn, the KDP, unwilling to depend on the PUK while engaging with Baghdad, is trying to make unilateral deals about outstanding issues with powerful Shiite political forces on which the government depends for its survival. In sum, Iraq’s Kurdish parties are practicing a politics of déjà vu: resorting to tactical alliances with Baghdad to gain advantage in their domestic competition, and Baghdad, despite being fragmented, is thus still keeping the Kurds divided.

C.An Uncertain Future for Pluralist Politics

Rather than sweeping away the figures who plunged Iraqi Kurdistan into existential crisis, the post-referendum instability seems to have strengthened them as they assumed the role of saviours of the Kurdish nation – at the expense of the region’s nominally democratic institutions. Since 2005, Iraqi Kurdistan has staged parliamentary elections on four occasions (in 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2018). It has seen pluralist politics, with opposition parties challenging the KDP-PUK duopoly and sometimes participating in government, a vibrant civil society and street mobilisation against deteriorating services and other manifestations of poor governance. The existential threat posed by the arrival of ISIS in northern Iraq in 2014 and the post-referendum backlash brought whatever democratic process existed to a halt, as party leaders cast themselves as protectors of Kurdistan against external threats, allowing them to more effectively silence dissent.

At the same time, allegations of fraud in the general and regional elections deepened popular distrust of a political process already discredited by chronic high-level corruption. In May 2018, the KDP’s and PUK’s astonishing success in Iraq’s parliamentary elections amid suspicions of fraud left many even more disillusioned about participating in the political process. A 25-year-old Kurd said in the lead-up to the regional elections: “Why vote? In Dohuk, even dead people went to vote [during the general election]. They don’t tell you, ‘there is coffee and tea; you choose’. They just say, ‘there is only coffee’”.

Developments since the elections suggest that the KDP and PUK are making concerted efforts to capture the region’s parliament and independent commissions, voiding their oversight roles and turning them into institutions that formalise decisions taken by party leaders.The region may continue to have a political opposition, but one that is far from being a meaningful check on power and will serve mainly to absorb the street’s anger at the political class. An indication of this trend is that newly elected lawmakers tend to be younger but still are an extension of party/family patronage networks, and thus are unable or unwilling to exercise oversight over those who put them forward as candidates. Some people in Erbil have started using the term “cardboard parliament” to describe the Kurdistan Regional Assembly.

 Both parties – the KDP in particular – have focused efforts on obtaining a greater share of the federal budget, which would allow the KRG to dampen discontent by ending austerity measures and resuming public-sector salary payments.  

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If this trend prevails, elections may cease to be a genuine avenue for political participation and renewal. Results may depend on the parties’ ability to co-opt and repress their own constituencies, mediate internal disputes or manipulate nominally independent electoral bodies to engineer election results.

The KDP’s hardliners seem confident that, after the party did so well in the regional elections, it may count on its leading role in the new cabinet and dominance in parliament to finish crafting the region’s institutional framework on its own terms (for instance, by approving the draft constitution). Its finishing touches may entail weakening the role of oversight institutions and restricting civic freedoms (independent media and political initiatives arising from civil society), which hardliners see as having negatively affected the region’s stability by creating room for an opposition that challenges the leadership and disrupts the two-party system. Both parties – the KDP in particular – have focused efforts on obtaining a greater share of the federal budget, which would allow the KRG to dampen discontent by ending austerity measures and resuming public-sector salary payments. Such steps could consolidate an already widespread tendency across large segments of Iraqi Kurdish society (especially in the large public sector) to accept the status quo, ie, value economic security over democratic freedoms.

The continued role of oversight institutions would be key to enable party figures in the reformist camp to preserve their power in the new government, focus on instituting a new KDP-PUK partnership to advance reforms in the region and shape a common strategy to engage with Baghdad. But if the opposing group that thrives on family-based rule prevails, the region’s downward slide is likely to continue. Iraqi Kurdistan risks losing what it has gradually achieved since 1991: a political system that allows (at least some degree of) genuine political representation, intra-party consensus, relative economic prosperity and social peace.

III.Back to Baghdad

The Kurds have a long history of troubled relations with Iraqi central governments, including recurring cycles of insurgency and counter-insurgency culminating in rampant village destruction and mass killings by the Saddam Hussein regime in the late 1980s. The removal of that regime and the arrival of opposition parties with which the Kurds had made common cause prior to 2003 offered the promise of significant improvement. That promise has been only partly fulfilled. The Kurds have been frustrated by government dysfunction in Baghdad, as well as lack of progress on the issues of greatest importance to them: the status of the disputed territories and oil revenue sharing.

 The rivalry between the KDP and PUK undermined the Kurds’ ability to regain their political strength.  

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The referendum backlash compelled Kurdish leaders to shift gears in their relations with Baghdad. As long as Erbil was in control of the disputed territories and Kirkuk’s oil, and could count on the support of other members of the anti-ISIS coalition, acting unilaterally seemed viable. That power balance has shifted in Baghdad’s favour; that, plus political changes in Baghdad relatively favourable to the Kurds, paradoxically may offer an opportunity: for the first time since the regime’s fall, Kurdish perspectives may be coming into alignment with those of a central government more willing than its predecessors to discuss a settlement on the disputed territories, Kirkuk in particular. To effectively re-engage with Baghdad, the Kurds will need to overcome their internal rivalries. Unity would also help avoid being drawn into growing U.S.-Iran competition in Iraq.

A.The KRG and the New Baghdad Government

Since late 2017, the two Kurdish parties have started to cautiously re-engage with their erstwhile political partners in Baghdad. This budding rapprochement reverses a decade of growing animosity, culminating in the referendum initiative. From 2007 onward, leaders in Baghdad and Erbil pursued confrontational rhetoric and policies on the disputed territories, oil revenue sharing and oil contracts.The Kurdish parties gradually disengaged from Baghdad and focused on developing their own region with outside help. Where before the parties had dispatched senior officials to serve in the Baghdad government, including Jalal Talabani as president, increasingly they sent lesser figures, who protected the region’s interests not by shaping policy but by treading water.

The dual shocks of losing control over the disputed territories and seeing their share of the federal budget cut convinced Kurdish leaders to reconsider their relations with Baghdad. Even the staunchest advocates of Kurdish independence within the KDP renewed efforts to regain for the KDP high-level positions in Baghdad traditionally assigned to Kurdish candidates (president, deputy chairman of parliament and others). A KDP official described the new approach toward Baghdad:

The idea of independence is still there but now we want to be in Baghdad in full strength. On the negotiating table are the implementation of Article 140 [on the disputed territories], revenue sharing and funding of the Peshmerga [Iraqi Kurdistan’s defence force], among others.

Just as government formation in Baghdad highlighted the KDP ’s renewed interest in investing in the Iraqi capital, the rivalry between the KDP and PUK undermined the Kurds’ ability to regain their political strength, which had delivered critical benefits in the past: a fuller degree of autonomy, a secure 17 per cent of the federal budget and the ability to sign oil contracts independently. In October 2018, the two parties sparred over who they should nominate for the Iraqi presidency, a position that has been reserved for a Kurd since 2005.Though the September 2018 elections placed the KDP in the lead in the Kurdish region, the PUK succeeded in pushing through its own candidate, Barham Salih, over the KDP’s strong opposition. Relations are still bitter. A PUK cadre said:

Since the KDP lost its bid for the presidency, it is making things difficult by showing no cooperation with us in Baghdad. But they cannot achieve anything in Baghdad or in Kirkuk without us, and the opposite is true as well: we cannot achieve anything without them.

Despite its largely ceremonial role, the presidency holds powers that could turn it into a strategic asset in the Kurds’ hands – but only if the KDP and PUK overcome their acrimony.

B.Two Separate Tracks in Engaging with Baghdad

Kurdish leaders have a vested interest in the success of the new government in Baghdad, as it could be willing and able, once fully formed, to deliver a deal on the outstanding issues that divide them. Yet intra-party rivalry is encouraging the KDP to reach unilateral agreements with powerful political-military factions in the capital, rather than negotiating jointly with the PUK to reach a sustainable settlement with the central government.

The first phase of government formation in Baghdad has been instructive. Following the May 2018 elections, both U.S. and Iranian officials pressed Kurdish parties to take a stand in favour of the Shiite bloc each of them supported – respectively, the Fatah bloc and the Nasr bloc.With 46 seats (25 for the KDP and 21 for the PUK), a Kurdish bloc would have been in a strong position to tip the intra-Shiite balance in favour of either of them – a power-broker role the Kurdish parties have played before in Baghdad. This time, their internal divisions prevented the two parties from projecting a unified front and thus weighing in decisively.

Instead, the KDP’s losing the bid for the presidency encouraged KDP hardliners to pursue deals on the disputed territories, the KRG’s budget share and oil sales with the pro-Iranian Fatah bloc as a way to recoup its post-referendum losses.

 A successful policy approach would make negotiations between Erbil and Baghdad a priority for the next two years.  

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Such an approach may yield the Kurdistan region quick gains on disputed territories and revenue, but they will be fragile, because they lack government support. Instead of institutionalising Baghdad-Erbil relations by seeking compromise on outstanding issues, these behind-the-scenes deals are dependent on personal relations between KDP figures and Shiite politicians, and thus can be reversed at any time. Moreover, these deals deepen the KDP-PUK divide and weaken the KRG’s ability to engage in negotiations with Baghdad.

One indication that this game is afoot is the Kurdish parties’ failure to agree on a candidate for justice minister, a post they received as part of government formation based on their electoral strength. The KDP approach also undermines Baghdad as an effective counterpart in negotiations with Erbil by strengthening political factions on which the government is already dependent for its survival. If a weak central government can deliver short-term benefits to the Kurds, it also has diminished ability to deliver a sustainable settlement on disputed territories and oil revenues.

C.Returning Politics to a Virtuous Circle

The referendum fallout holds opportunities for conflict resolution that should be seized, as well as risks of new flare-ups that should be averted. International players, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) in particular, should capitalise on Kurdish re-engagement with Baghdad by assigning senior officials to the task of mediating a deal on the disputed territories. Arguably, the odds have never been more favourable. A successful policy approach would make negotiations between Erbil and Baghdad a priority for the next two years. It also would take into account the inter-dependency between the KDP-PUK balance in Erbil and Kurdish re-engagement with Baghdad.

If the U.S. were to ratchet down its escalatory rhetoric against Iran, throw its weight behind renewed KDP-PUK strategic partnership and encourage a Kurdish rapprochement with Baghdad, its leverage in Iraq’s political process might increase through its alliance with the Kurds. Under these conditions, the chances appear good that KDP and PUK reformists can prevail to shape a workable partnership, rather than fall victim to the divide-and-rule politics in the capital, and facilitate a sustainable solution for the disputed territories.

Success in Baghdad would benefit from stability in Erbil. Strengthening intra-party consensus and internal party cohesion would be helpful in this regard and should be encouraged as long as it is aimed at re-establishing oversight mechanisms over the region’s executive branch and supporting cooperation between reformist figures, of whatever party, committed to reaching a negotiated settlement with Baghdad. A UNAMI-led negotiation process between Erbil and Baghdad could help achieve a settlement that would be more sustainable than ad hoc political deals based on mere trading of favours between individual party figures.

In the absence of accountability for the KRG or the Kurdish parties, foreign economic and military support for the Kurdish region is likely to strengthen party figures with no commitment to reform who are wont to suppress opposition with a heavy hand. The KRG’s international partners, who have already spent heavily on the military and security partnership, should therefore also invest in restoring mechanisms of oversight in the region’s political system (parliament, judiciary, independent commissions) and in strengthening civil society, which could keep reformist figures powerful enough to continue the reform process inside Kurdistan and revive intra-party cooperation. A newfound strategic partnership in the Kurdish region is essential for the two parties to effectively re-engage with Baghdad. Reformist figures in Kurdish politics tend to be those who have the best relations with the central government and also are most committed to finding new working relationships between the KDP and PUK inside the region.

IV.Conclusion

The future course of Iraqi Kurdistan will depend to a large degree on the outcome of an intra-leadership competition that, given current dynamics, is likely to empower hardline figures over reformists. This outcome could trigger a vicious cycle, which would further shrink space for political representation in the Kurdish region and undermine efforts to find a sustainable solution to outstanding issues between Erbil and Baghdad. It could also be a factor that contributes to political fragmentation that would turn Iraq ever more into a staging ground for the growing U.S.-Iran regional rivalry.

The current U.S. administration’s escalatory rhetoric vis-à-vis Iran inevitably is contributing to this vicious cycle. Maximum pressure on Iran is likely to end up polarising Iraq’s political scene into rival blocs, paralysing the Baghdad government and pushing KDP and PUK hardliners to reach unilateral agreements on disputed territories and revenue-sharing, while shrinking the space for negotiating a durable solution to these festering issues.

If family loyalty and patronage continue to be the governing principles of Kurdish politics, reformist figures may have no option but to start playing by the same rules, seeking and doling out patronage themselves, lest they be cast aside. With hardliners empowered, it would be difficult for the KDP and PUK to find a workable strategic partnership. Instead, the parties’ leaders may try to use their dependence on regional powers to prevail in struggles with domestic rivals inside and outside the party. Kurds have too often paid the price of being caught up in regional and international rivalries because of intra-party divisions. Invariably, the outcome of such entanglements has been further internal fragmentation and vulnerability. This time, it would jeopardise the achievements of a generation in establishing an autonomous region with a degree of genuine political representation, relative economic prosperity and social peace.

Erbil/Brussels, 27 March 2019

Edited March 27, 2019 by 6ly410

[new york kevin]

So what you are saying is that the PUK and the KDP are split as far as their political philosophies and goals are concerned, right ? Good article. Very very detailed.

Edited March 27, 2019 by new york kevin

[Pitcher]

 

 

Kurdish officials have denied rumors the Iraqi government will cut the Kurdistan Region’s national budget share, saying Baghdad will continue to distribute the salaries of public employees on time.

In remarks on Tuesday, Bashid Haddad, the deputy speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, said some lawmakers are trying to stir controversy regarding the payment of the KRG employees’ future salaries.

“I reassure the people of the Kurdistan Region that Iraq will continue to distribute their salaries every month just like other cities in Iraq,” Haddad said. “The Iraqi government has delivered the salaries of KRG employees to the Kurdistan Region for the past three months and will continue to do so,” he added.

Moreover, Fuad Hussein, the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and Minister of Finance, explained that the salaries of KRG employees are part of the 2019 budget law, and the Iraqi government has a responsibility to implement that law.

Some Kurdish lawmakers recently spread threats that Baghdad would cut the salaries of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) employees because the KRG has not handed part of its oil export to Iraq’s state oil marketing company – SOMO – based on an article in the country’s 2019 budget bill.

KRG, according to law, must hand over 250,000 barrels of oil per day to SOMO as well as pass local revenues to Iraq’s treasury. The Kurdish government has yet to implement the oil article.

However, the Iraqi government made no comments so far about a cut in the monthly salaries for KRG public servants.

 

https://www.thebaghdadpost.com/en/Story/37737/Kurdish-officials-deny-rumors-on-KRG-budget-cut

[Donziman]

The KRG has yet to implement the oil article ? wow this is a shock. I think they have

had over a year to get R done.  It's the culture man the culture...

[yota691]

MP for the Kurdistan Democratic Diyar Tayeb Berwari (Tigris): The relationship of Erbil and Baghdad is very good and there are parties seeking to return it to the first box

 

MP for the Kurdistan Democratic Diyar Tayeb Berwari (Tigris): The relationship of Erbil and Baghdad is very good and there are parties seeking to return it to the first box

 

Number of readings: 1157 27-03-2019 09:32 PM

 

27-03-2019 09:32 PM

The Kurdistan Democratic MP, Diyar Tayeb Berwari, on Wednesday, that the relationship of Erbil and Baghdad is very good, but there are parties seeking to return to the first box. 

Berwari said in a statement to (Tigris), that 'the situation in Kurdistan advanced in all respects and the testimony of the Iraqis', noting that 'the achievements of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, irritated his predecessor Haidar Abadi' 

He added that 'very unlikely the outbreak of civil war in Kirkuk that the components in the province conscious and will not be dragged into war,' pointing out that 'the file of Kirkuk is very thorny and Abdul-Mahdi dealt with his throat'.  

 

[6ly410]

Parliamentary Finance issued a clarification on the salaries of staff of the region

Political | 08:09 - 27/03/2019

 

 

 

BAGHDAD ( 
Reuters) - A member of the parliamentary finance committee, Ahmed Haji Rachid, issued a clarification on salaries of Kurdistan region employees on Wednesday. 
Rashid said in a clarification that received / Mawazine News / a copy of it, he "visited the Federal Court today to discuss three issues, namely, the interpretation of Article 130 of the Constitution, the oil file and the decision of the Federal Court, and the federal budget law. 
He added that "article 130 of the Constitution on the salaries of employees, including employees of the region, has become law, and can not be canceled," pointing out that "the oil file will be resolved soon." 
He pointed out that "the Federal Court, will not interpret the legal texts, but interpret the constitutional frameworks," stressing that "the law of the financial budget will be applied as it is without any change."

 

 

https://www.mawazin.net/Details.aspx?jimare=40067

 

[boosterbglee]

"Resolved Soon".......aye caramba!   🤣

[wc41]

"The oil file will be resolved soon" is the part of our greatest attention ….. Yes?! 😃