ALTOGETHER : US, Turkey & Iran mediating between Erbil & Baghdad

8.04.2014 –  Shwan Barzinji – BasNews, Erbil – In an interview with BasNews, the Deputy head of the Finance Ministry of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Rashid Tahir, said that the US, Turkey and Iran have been arbitrating between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad to help them solve outstanding issues including budget and oil exportation.Tahir said that the Kurdistan Region treasury does not have enough money to distribute staff salaries on time, stressing that Baghdad is yet to send the Kurdistan Region its monthly budget. According to Tahir Kurdistan’s neighboring countries believe in the legality of the KRG’s activities in development and the oil sector.  

“Baghdad has not sent the Kurdistan Region budget for the last three months. It is a political issue,” said Tahir. Tahir rejected the news that the region has received foreign money, saying that the KRG distributed the staff salaries through gathering debts from local investors and internal revenue. He explained that in order to pass its economic crisis the KRG has adopted a policy of expenditure cutting, saying that some expenses have been cut by 30% while others have been cut completely. For the region’s investment projects, however, Tahir said that the KRG has allocated a budget to keep them afloat. “The service contractors are assisting us and have not stalled their projects, so we allocated a budget to be spent on workers and their expenses,” said Tahir.