Iraq's prime minister offering to pay the salaries of the Kurds in exchange for oil

2016-02-16 07:15:00 | (Voice of Iraq) - Reuters

Iraqi Prime Minister said that Baghdad will pay the salaries of government employees in the Kurdistan region halted if the semi-autonomous northern sell oil independently hinting at the possibility of reviving an agreement to share oil revenue.

After an economic boom a decade-long Kurdistan Regional Government began to suffer in 2014 when Baghdad has reduced its share of the budget after the Kurds built up a pipeline to Turkey in order to achieve economic independence.

Government of the Territory and was forced to cut public sector salaries by up to 75 percent this month under an economic crisis caused by tumbling oil prices.

He said Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in an interview with state television, he suggested that the Kurds provides oil-for-payment of salaries of employees of the region.

The average oil exports from northern Iraq through the pipeline to Turkey, 601 and 811 thousand barrels per day last month, mostly from the Kurdish region's fields. The rest came from the disputed Kirkuk field operated by the North Oil Company, which operated the Iraqi state, but is subject to Kurdish control since June June 2014, when militants overran the organization of the Islamic state north of the country.

Kurdish officials have warned recently that their region is facing economic collapse.

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