Masoud Haider has previously served as a Change Movement (Gorran) MP in Baghdad and now works as a senior advisor for KDP President Masoud Barzani. In an interview with Rudaw English on Wednesday, he discussed ways to improve relations between Erbil and Baghdad.
A new ministerial post is being discussed within the KRG, the Minister of Federal Affairs. The role would streamline relations between Erbil and Kurdistani politicians and entities within the federal government.
Haider also discusses the possibility of US forces leaving Syria and being stationed in the Kurdistan Region or elsewhere in Iraq. Haider believes it is important for the Kurdistan Region's Peshmerga to continue discussions with the Iraqi Army for joint patrols in the disputed areas.
The finance advisor also touches on Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi's relations with the KRG, compared to his predecessors and a recent audit by Deloitte, revealing $1.3 billion in oil revenues in the third quarter of 2018.
On Wednesday, high-level delegates from most of the major parties in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq convened in Baghdad with Iraqi President Barham Salih. Haider explained the meeting was to discuss a continued US troop presence and services for Iraqis.
What would this new position of KRG Minister of Federal Affairs do? Would it help to speed up the problem of the lack of communications between Erbil and Baghdad? What's the goal?
In my experience as an Iraqi MP, it was very difficult to coordinate and communicate with the institutions in the KRG. The idea is to establish a Minister of Federal Affairs in the KRG cabinet to coordinate with the Kurdish blocs, with the Kurdish ministers in Baghdad, and with all the Kurdish representatives in all the federal institutions.
In this way it will be easier to communicate, to coordinate because sometimes when we had some legislation it was very difficult. The response in the KRG was late. We couldn't get feedback from them as to which way we should move. The idea by the politicians here today and the government in general is to have this minister coordinate all the issues between Baghdad and the institutions in the KRG.
Today, there was a very large meeting with representatives from all major Iraqi and Kurdistani political parties in Baghdad. What do you expect to come out of this meeting?
They had a statement. But my information is they discussed many issues in Iraq and the security after defeating ISIS because ISIS is forming a challenge in the disputed areas especially in small groups. And we see each day and every day they have military operations. We think it's important to coordinate the forces — the Iraqi forces with the Peshmerga in the disputed areas to guarantee security for society, for all groups in those regions.
And one of the other issues was discussing American military troops in Iraq — discussion the situation with Iraqi political parties and blocs. They say they don't need them anymore in Iraq because ISIS isn't here anymore as a state, but on the other side we think it's important to have those military troops in Iraq because we need them to rebuild the Iraqi military and not to have the same experience like in 2011. We sent them out and then we found ISIS on the ground and it cost Iraqi people a huge amount of people and also the economy to defeat them...
There are many other issues they discussed today. I think those kinds of meetings are important for the Iraqi political [scene] — to have it maybe each term, each three months to discuss the main issue. And maybe it's important to mention one of the other main issues was to complete the cabinet of Dr. Adil Abdul-Mahdi as soon as possible and to focus on the main services for the Iraq people because they are suffering from many things like not having electricity and other facilities that they need in daily.
Ambassador James Jeffrey from the US State Department has been having a lot of meetings with Kurdish leaders. There are 2,000 or more US forces in Syria. Donald Trump said it's possible they could come to Iraq. Could they come to Kirkuk or the Kurdistan Region and places like this?
It's up to the Iraqi government because we have as a federal government a deal with the USA and other international countries in the framework of the international coalition against ISIS. It depends on how the Iraq government will deal with it because there is a strategic accord between Iraq and the USA.
With Donald Trump trying to impose sanctions on Iran and the Kurdistan Region sharing so many border crossings with Iran, what is the Kurdistan Region doing to adhere to the US sanctions while still providing your people with what they need so you don't have inflation on the price of goods and so on?
We are federally a region in a federal country. The federal policy will not be part of struggle between any other countries. We will have an independent policy and Kurdistan will be a part of the federal policy of Iraq.
Today, Deloitte released its audit for Quarter 3 in 2018 with $1.3 billion net revenue in oil for the Kurdistan Regional Government. Are you satisfied with the work Deloitte is doing and how is it affecting the KRG?
What Deloitte is doing is important as an auditing organization to satisfy the administration of the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources. That's very important for us. And we hope that the KRG in the future can export more to raise the revenue of KRG and that's an issue because it depends on the kind of contracts with the oil companies. And also in the last four years, KRG didn't get any budget from Iraq and that was a disaster. It had to depend on itself and it depends on the debt they got from those oil companies.
And at the moment the debt is very high. It has to be paid back, so we can see the revenue that we are getting at the moment, and Deloitte mentioned it, is $1.2 billion [quarterly]. It's an important issue between Iraq and the KRG. We hope that in 2019, with an open discussion — all the issues, economic issues between the KRG and the federal government will be on the table and so on."
What is the difference you've seen between Erbil and Baghdad during the prime ministership of Adil Abdul-Mahdi and with his predecessors Haider al-Abadi and Nouri al-Maliki?
Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi as a person is different from them. He has another vision, another view on how to solve the problems of all Iraq including with the KRG. That's one point. The second point is after visiting with the delegation of President Barzani, the political situation has been totally different. We have hope that that the Iraqi people, and Iraqi politicians also have hope to solve all the problems inside Iraq including with the KRG.
The first result of that visit is that the wages of the KRG employees have been established within the budget law, as well as for the Peshmerga. The second step is we hope to see the Peshmerga back in the disputed areas as a coordination force with the Iraqi forces. We hope that 2019 will be a year of solving the economic issues between the KRG and Baghdad. That is oil, budget, all the debts, and all the budgets that the KRG didn't get in the past five years.