ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The speaker of the Iraqi parliament met with his Kurdish counterpart in Erbil on Wednesday, signalling a possible thaw in the long-running dispute between the two governments over Baghdad’s freeze of budget payments to Erbil.

Salim Al-Jiburi, the Iraqi speaker, met Yusuf Mohammed, speaker of the Kurdistan region’s parliament, as part of continuing efforts to solve the budget crisis, in which Baghdad has failed to give the Kurdistan Regional Government its 17 per cent share of the national budget since March.

Jiburi made assurances that payments would be made soon. “We discussed the budget with the Kurdish parliament and we assure Kurdistan region employees that we will give them salaries for the months they have not received any,” he said.

The Kurds have given a 90-day deadline to the new Iraqi government led by Haider Al- Abadi to resolve the budgetary and other issues. Few analysts are hopeful of a satisfactory resolution of Kurdish demands but Jiburi sounded upbeat.

“It’s our privilege to meet with the Kurdish parliament. We thank Kurdish officials for their sense of responsibility towards the new Iraqi government,” he said. “We are here to discuss all relevant issues in the Iraqi political process, we promise the Iraqi government will fulfil all its promises, and we welcome the participation of Kurdish ministers in the new government.”

More than a fifth of Kurdistan's five million people are on the government’s payroll, which totals some 840 billion dinars ($723 million) a month or 70 per cent of public spending in 2013.

Mohammed expressed his hope that the new Iraqi government’s performance would be an improvement compared with the cabinet led by Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister. “We hope the new Iraqi government will rule in a more progressive fashion,” he said.

He also raised the issue of the 1.4 million internally displaced persons and refugees in Kurdistan.”The Kurdistan region has assisted refugees in every possible way but the large number of those who have sought refuge in the area is above the capacity of the KRG and it would do so even if we were an independent country.”

The needs of the Kurdish Peshmerga, who are fighting ISIS on several fronts, was discussed and Jiburi thanked them for their contribution to the war effort as well as the KRG’s co-operation with Baghdad in the war against the militants.

“Kurdish forces have been able to react to the threats and continues to battle them,” he said. “We need unity to confront the waves of threats.”

Rudaw