Erbil- Baghdad talks postponed to next week

Shafaq News / Samir Hawrami, spokesman for the Deputy Prime Minister of Kurdistan, Qubad Talabani said on Saturday that the visit of the regional government delegation to Baghdad has been postponed.

Hawrami told Shafaq News agency that the visit of the Kurdish delegation to Baghdad was postponed until Monday or Tuesday of this coming week.

He said that the reason for the postponement is due to the incomplete agenda of the talks, noting that there were no other factors that led to the postponement of the visit.”

A high-ranking delegation from the regional government headed by Qubad Talabani, deputy prime minister of the region, was scheduled to visit the capital, Baghdad, tomorrow, Sunday, to resume discussions with the federal government to resolve differences and outstanding issues between the two sides.

The regional government delegation had previously made several visits to the capital, Baghdad, after the previous federal government headed by Adel Abdul Mahdi stopped financing the salaries of public sector.

The differences and outstanding issues between Erbil and Baghdad are based on the region’s share of the financial budgets, the entitlements of the Peshmerga forces, the export of oil, and the disputed areas covered by Article 140 of the permanent Iraqi constitution.

On several occasions and times, Kurdistan’s Government has shown its willingness to deliver 250 thousand barrels of crude oil per day in exchange for the Iraqi government funding of employees' salaries by 450 billion Iraqi dinars per month.