Ammar al-Hakim from Erbil calls for a holistic approach to Erbil-Baghdad financial disputes

Shafaq News/ The head of "Iraqiun" coalition, Ammar al-Hakim, called on Sunday for a comprehensive and fair financial and economic agreement between Baghdad and Erbil, urging the Kurdistan Region to show flexibility in the pending files with Baghdad regarding the financial budget, oil, border crossings, and others.

Al-Hakim said in his speech on the occasion of the Iraqi Martyr's Day in Erbil, “We cannot build an independent, stable, and prosperous Iraq without strong, dignified, and free Iraqis from all the components."

Al-Hakim addressed the Kurds, "I invite you frankly and clearly to renew the covenant and promise together to be, as we have been throughout our history, one hand to complete the process of building the Iraqi state and the Iraqi nation."

"The artificial gaps that occurred, and occur from time to time, between Arabs and Kurds due to pressures, challenges, and emerging circumstances must dissipate and disappear, through a joint and conscious Iraqi {Arab-Kurdish-Turkmen} speech, which calls for citizenship, the collective identity, the Iraqi nationality, and the supreme interests of the country."

"Let us slam the doors and windows in the face of extremism and tension from all sides, and open a white Iraqi page, in which we line our common concerns and address our emergent crises and create through it a project that gets over components and gathers us on its sides and grants us all the strength and resilience of a strong Iraqi state that includes a strong Kurdish region and strong Iraqi governorates as approved by the constitution."

" The security, economy, and foreign policy issues must push us towards a comprehensive and serious dialogue and establish a new and effective formula that stipulates that the security of Iraq is indivisible. What befalls Baghdad affects everyone, and what affects Erbil, the center, or the south affects everyone. Therefore, we must all work to control the Security in all Iraq wholly and strictly. "

Al-Hakim declared his "strong condemnation of the devastating rocket attacks that the city of Erbil has suffered recently, affecting the security of Kurdistan and Iraq together."

"The Iraqi economy needs an integrative triad, represented by {unifying the vision, unifying resources, and equitable distribution}. We cannot tolerate outdated and rigid rentier economic plans. We affirm that financing the general budget of Iraq is everyone's responsibility. All Iraqis are equal in rights and duties as stipulated in the constitution."

"The annual interactions and negotiations over the budget, oil, and border crossings have become frustrating obstacles for the Iraqi, Arab and Kurdish, citizens, who are anxiously awaiting the fate of their livelihood, sustenance, and economic security."

Al-Hakim called for "a comprehensive and fair financial and economic agreement with Baghdad that ends the debate permanently through clauses that preserve the rights of everyone, remove controversies, and defines the responsibility of all parties."

Al-Hakim addressed the Kurds and regional officials, "Give us solutions and flexibility to stand with you with strength, logic, and greater flexibility, and we help you and defend you everywhere."

He said, "I place hopes on the wisdom and insight of the region’s leaders, in the forefront of which the brother President Masoud Barzani...we hope he helps and supports us as always, on one front, which is the united, unified, strong, independent, and prosperous front of Iraq."