Kurdistan Region President’s Chief of Staff Fuad Hussein said the region has asked the United States for economic support that the Baghdad government has not provided for the region, Washington Post reported.
In a dispute over oil exports and revenue sharing, he said, Baghdad has not paid the Kurdistan region its share of overall government revenue for six months, running up about $6 billion in arrears.
Before the recent Islamist gains, the Kurdistan regional budget was about $1 billion a month. Hussein said that with increased deployments of Peshmerga troops and a million refugees coming in from areas under militant control, regional budget needs have increased.
“We desire our fair share from the Iraqi government,” he said.
Like the rest of Iraq, Kurdistan’s main revenue source is oil, and Hussein estimated that the region is exporting about 125,000 barrels a day through a relatively new pipeline to Turkey.
Kurdistan Region perusing separate ways
Iraq’s Kurdistan region is pursuing two separate paths to the future, one as part of Iraq and one as an independent state, said senior Kurdish officials, including Hussein, who met with Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Wednesday in Washington.
But even if a suitable government is formed in Baghdad — for Kurds, one that does not include Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — “we are not ready to go back to pre-June 9,” when Islamist militants began their advance across the northwest part of the country, said Hussein.
“We are not willing to go back to the previous formula of Baghdad to control and dictate,” Hussein said.
New state between Erbil and Baghdad
Kurdistan, which long has sought greater autonomy, no longer has a border with the remnants of the Iraqi state ruled by Baghdad, Hussein said. “There is a new state between us and Baghdad, ruled by a terrorist group,” he said.
“In the end, we believe in self-determination.”
Kurdish representatives were among those who walked out of a meeting of Iraq’s new parliament in Baghdad on Tuesday, arguing that neither the Shiites nor the Sunnis were prepared to nominate new candidates to form a government.
Hussein and Kurdistan Region Foreign Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, who traveled to Washington with him, said Kurds would attend the next scheduled parliamentary session on July 8, but they expressed little optimism.