ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Erbil is ready to cooperate in the Baghdad government’s fight against corruption by refusing to be a haven for people escaping guilty verdicts, a senior Kurdish official said Sunday.

“I believe there will be full coordination between Baghdad and Erbil. We will not shelter criminals,” said Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to the Kurdistan Region president.

But he said that would not affect Kurdistan allowing entry to people escaping from other parts of Iraq because of the war with ISIS.

“Kurdistan’s door is open for all refugees and displaced people who seek a safe zone in Kurdistan region,” he said.

Hussein added that Kurdistan would not allow those convicted of corruption by Baghdad courts to settle in Kurdistan.

An Iraqi commission investigating huge corruption in the war-torn country at the beginning of the year named three former ministers and 53 senior officials in its findings, saying that a whopping $330 billion of public money remains unaccounted for.

Iraqi and Kurdish lawmakers met in January to examine ways to combat corruption and take cross-border action against convicted wrongdoers.

Transparency International (TI) has ranked Iraq as 170 from a total of 175 countries in global corruption for the year 2014.

According to a TI study most Iraqis are dissatisfied with the Baghdad government's current anti-corruption efforts.

Rudaw