KRG's negotiating team updates Kurdistan Parliament on talks with Baghdad on 2020 budget and oil

The Kurdistan Parliament held a sitting on 23 January to get an update from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s negotiating team on their talks with Iraqi Federal Government on the 2020 Iraq budget and oil.

KRG Finance Minister Awat Janab, Planning Minister Dara Rashid, Minister for the Region Khalid Shwani, Council of Minister Chief of Staff Dr. Omed Sabah and Cabinet Secretary Dr. Amanj Rahim updated the MPs about the status of the negotiations with Baghdad.

Deputy Speaker Hemin Hawrami, who presided at the sitting, said that revealing the details of the talks with Baghdad before they are completed could jeopardize them, and that several MPs had therefore asked for the sitting to be closed and off-camera. Seventy-three MPs voted in favour of holding it as a closed-door sitting.

In the next part of the sitting, which was broadcast, Dr. Galawesh Obeid Osman (KDP) discussed the need to establish a national counseling centre for children with developmental disorders, mental and physical disabilities and chronic conditions. She urged MPs to support the establishment of such a centre.

Deputy Speaker Hawrami congratulated the people of Kurdistan on the 74th anniversary of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad in 1946, and commemorated its leaders Muhammad Qazi and General Mustafa Barzani.

The Deputy Speaker also conveyed the Kurdistan Parliament’s condolences to the families of the victims who lost their lives in the Aegean Sea on 11 January, attempting to migrate to Europe.