ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Regional Government can directly export its oil to world markets without going through Baghdad, Kurdistan region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani claimed following a meeting with other Kurdish factions Wednesday.

In the meeting that was held to discuss Iraq and Kurdistan region affairs, Barzani shared the KRG’s stance on recent negotiations with authorities in Baghdad. All political party representatives attended the meeting. They also shared their views about Baghdad-Erbil agreements regarding oil and budget shares.

The KRG exported over 17.9 million barrels of crude oil—an average of 557,621 barrels per day—in the month of May, said The Ministry of Oil and Natural Resources in a statement released earlier this month. According to the latest Baghdad-Erbil agreement, the KRG should send only 550,000 bpd through the Kurdistan pipelines to Ceyhan in Turkey.

As stated in the latest oil and budget agreement on the Kurdistan and Kirkuk oilfields, Baghdad must pay the KRG 1.2 trillion Iraqi dinars, worth more than $1 billion. However, the Baghdad government has been consistently short on its end of the deal, paying only $409 million in April.

Rudaw