Baghdad / Mohammed Sabah
The federal government and the Kurdistan region agreed mid-month to form ten joint committees whose task is to search for consensual solutions to end the differences between the parties.
The most prominent committees work on oil files, border crossings, airports and salaries of employees.
The technical committee overseeing the management of the airport file approached the resolution of this file after reaching an agreement to deal with the differences in the resumption of work at the Erbil and Sulaymaniyah airports, which have been suspended for several months.
“The negotiations between the federal government and the Kurdistan region a few days ago led to the formation of ten joint committees working to resolve all the outstanding and thorny issues between the two parties,” MP Tareq Siddiq Rasheed said in a statement.
A government delegation visited Erbil on January 15 under the chairmanship of the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers Mehdi Alalak to form several negotiating committees whose task is to solve the files of ports, airports, oil and pay salaries.
And divided these joint committees to manage ten files thorny and work to resolve, and the most prominent of these files are the oil file, border crossings, education and health, and the Bureau of financial control, retirement, Peshmerga, labor and social affairs.
Rashid stressed that “the Kurdistan Regional Government is ready to resolve the oil file with Baghdad in accordance with the legal and constitutional frameworks that require the management of oil fields newly explored in a joint manner between the parties,” expressing his hope “settle all the contentious and thorny through the joint negotiating committees.”
The Prime Minister Haider Abadi met with the Kurdistan Regional Government President Nechirvan Barzani on the sidelines of the Davos conference on Wednesday.
The Information Office of the Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi issued a statement in which he explained that the Kurdistan Regional Government has expressed its consent to hand over the oil in full to the federal government and export it through the national company Sumo.
The head of the provincial government, Nechirvan Barzani, said that the statement in the Office of Abadi on the delivery of oil region to Sumo is far from health, stressing that “the statement touched on things we did not discuss originally.”
“The meeting focused on the possibility of exporting Kirkuk oil through the pipeline of Kurdistan, Ceyhan of Turkey,” stressing that “the management of the oil file will be subject to the provisions of the Iraqi constitution.”
The Technical Committee overseeing the management of airports visiting Sulaymaniyah is approaching a final agreement on the resumption of work from Erbil and Sulaymaniyah airports after solving some of the problems and differences between the two sides.
The MP of the coalition of state law Jabbar Abadi said in a statement to (the extent) that “a delegation from the Border Crossing Authority currently in the province of Sulaymaniyah is looking for a mechanism to resume work at the airports of Sulaymaniyah and Erbil,” noting that “the file of airports is similar to what is blocked between Parties “. Baghdad imposed measures described by the Kurds as “punitive”, in response to the departure of the territory towards the referendum on 25 September last, despite the rejection of the government of Abadi and regional and international opposition.
And escalated controversy and complexity in the crisis between the center and the region after the redeployment of federal forces in the disputed areas and impose a ban on international flights on airports in the region and demand the extradition of border crossings to the federal authority.
The oil file, according to MP for the province of Basra Jabbar Abadi, “the most complex files of the crisis between Erbil and Baghdad, being linked to the file of the executors Vishkhabor and Ibrahim Khalil,” asserting that “the handover Vishkhabor by the Peshmerga is due to being a vital outlets for oil.
To this, a deputy of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan bloc that “the federal government is still seeking to impose control over the perpetrators of Vishkhabor and Ibrahim Khalil, which is one of the contentious differences between the two teams,” pointing out that “dialogues continue between Baghdad and Erbil to resolve the thorny and controversial files” .
“The government wants the Kurdistan Regional Government to send reports on oil sales since 2014 and until now,” explains MP Mohammad Othman. “These demands complicate the solution of the oil file and make it difficult for the committees to negotiate.”
Othman added that “the committee supervising the Ministries of Education and Health has not completed its tasks in the audit of employees, despite working for more than two full months,” and wondered, “When will end the audit committees of the examination and audit of all ministries in the Kurdistan region?
Talks between the federal government and the Kurdistan region are proceeding at a slow pace, despite ongoing contacts between the two parties, which allowed the federal government committees to audit the lists of officials of the ministries of education and health in the Kurdistan region in preparation for payment of their salaries.
But a problem looming in the horizon may hinder all these developments. The provincial government is demanding that the distribution of salaries, after the audit process, through it exclusively and refuses to deal with its ministries with Baghdad, which wants to pay salaries through the directorates in each province.
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