“Instead of punishing the Kurds, if we work together, if Baghdad works with Erbil, sees the Kurds ad an advantage, as a good thing, and as a way of growing the economic pie of Iraq, then that can only benefit the whole of Iraq, and especially the people of Kurdistan,” Zahawi told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman on the sidelines of the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
Zahawi called on the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to “set aside their differences” and follow the UAE’s model of working together to achieve prosperity.
He also stressed that the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline should resume.
“I think it’s very important to restart the pipeline. As you know, billions of dollars have been lost because of … political indigestion, and that should not happen,” Zahawi stressed, adding that the resumption of exports is especially important with the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline have been suspended since March 2023, after a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying the latter had violated a 1973 pipeline agreement by allowing Erbil to export oil independently in 2014.
The Kurdistan Region is bracing itself to resume oil exports after the Iraqi parliament on February 2 approved an amendment to the federal budget law, increasing the compensation for international oil companies (IOCs) operating in the Region. The move is seen as crucial for restarting oil exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline.
Zahawi also stressed that Baghdad and Erbil must resolve their outstanding tensions.
“It has been miserable to watch Kurdistan be punished, month in month out, for political ambitions elsewhere, where the salaries are not delivered, where tiny disputes become much bigger, just to punish the Kurds. That can’t be right,” he said.
The Iraqi federal government and the KRG have held several meetings in recent weeks to discuss amendments to the 2025 federal budget law and resolve the obstacles hindering the payment of civil servant salaries in the Kurdistan Region. The KRG has been working to allocate funds from its share of the federal budget to address the salary shortfalls that have persisted throughout the past year.
