The Kurdistan Regional Government said on Tuesday that a high-level negotiating delegation would travel to Baghdad on Wednesday to discuss oil and financial obligations, as well as the region’s rights and entitlements under the 2027 federal budget.
The regional government’s Department of Media and Information said the delegation would hold official meetings with the Federal Ministry of Finance, in coordination with the region’s representative office in Baghdad, with the aim of reaching a «common and fair understanding» بشأن the obligations and entitlements.
Salaries and Peshmerga entitlements
The discussions will cover salaries for regional government employees and entitlements for the Peshmerga forces, internal security personnel, retirees, political prisoners, families of martyrs and those covered by the social protection network, as well as staffing allocations, operating expenses, investment projects and sovereign expenditures.
The delegation will include the head of the regional Council of Ministers’ office, the council secretary, the head of the Coordination and Follow-up Department and the deputy minister of natural resources, along with officials from the Ministry of Finance and Economy and a representative of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs.
Calls for a fixed disbursement mechanism
The regional government said it had fulfilled its financial and oil obligations to the federal government and would continue to do so during 2027, arguing that this left no justification for delaying, suspending or reducing the region’s rights.
The delegation will seek to have the region’s financial rights clearly enshrined in the 2027 budget law and to establish a fixed mechanism for transferring them, while excluding salaries and basic entitlements from the actual-spending criterion and any restrictions that could delay or reduce them.
