Shafaq News- Erbil

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Wednesday called for its share of Iraq's 2027 federal budget to be set at 14.14%, matching its proportion of the country's population in the latest census, and urged Baghdad not to put the current draft to a vote until it is revised.

The KRG, chaired by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, instructed its negotiating team to set out what it called constitutional flaws and inaccurate clauses and tables in the draft prepared by the federal Finance Ministry. The team is to present them, along with proposed alternatives, to federal authorities and the parties in the ruling coalition.

The cabinet added that “Erbil has met all its obligations” and shares its financial data with federal authorities for monthly and quarterly review. It described the talks under Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi as an opportunity to settle long-running financial disputes instead of repeating the same crisis every year.

Budget allocations have long strained relations between Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. Erbil has rejected the 12.67% share set in the current federal framework, citing the 2024 census. A member of parliament's Finance Committee said on Saturday that the Kurdistan Region's allocation in the draft was estimated at 12.8 trillion dinars of a proposed 217 trillion dinars, roughly 6%.