Erbil funds Kirkuk as Baghdad fails: Governor
Governor of Kirkuk, Najmaddin Karim.
Kirkuk (BasNews) Kirkuk has been deprived of its financial rights by Baghdad, but the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) continues to send funds to the multi-ethnic province, said Kirkuk’s Governor, Najmaddin Karim.
The oil-rich province of Kirkuk, located in northern Iraq, is home to Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens. Officially, Kirkuk is under the jurisdiction of the Iraqi federal government.
The KRG is committed to provide his administration with $10 million from the petrodollar funds, even though the central government in Baghdad has failed to share its budget with the province, Karim told reporters on Sunday.
Kirkuk is hosting thousands of Iraqi internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled Islamic State (IS) rule in their areas, which has intensified the financial hardships of the province, local officials say.
Following the IS offensive in Iraq on June, 2014, the Iraqi army having failed to defend the territory and abandoned their posts in Kirkuk, the Peshmerga forces moved in to fill the security gap left by the Iraqi forces.