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Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced Tuesday that the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan region have started implementing a deal under which Baghdad resumes funding Kurdish civil servant salaries in return for a share of Kurdish oil exports. Ali Abbas/EPA /LANDOV hide caption

Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced Tuesday that the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan region have started implementing a deal under which Baghdad resumes funding Kurdish civil servant salaries in return for a share of Kurdish oil exports.

Iraq's government and Kurdish regional authorities have announced a deal that could end a dispute between them over oil exports and the budget.

Under the deal, announced by Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, the Kurds will release 300,000 barrels per day of oil from Kirkuk. Another 250,000 barrels per day would be exported from the semiautonomous Kurdistan Region through Turkey.

In return, Baghdad said it would release 17 percent of the budget allocated to the Kurdish region, and would also give an extra $1 billion to Kurdish peshmerga who are fighting the Islamic State militant group.

The Associated Press reported that Iraq's Oil Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said joint committees will follow up on the implementation of the deal.

NPR's Leila Fadel, who reported on the deal for our Newscast unit, says, "The increased oil production could alleviate some pressure on the central government, which is facing an economic crisis, but also alleviate pressures in the Kurdish north where regional authorities have been having trouble paying government employees and the Kurdish security forces."

But there is skepticism about the agreement.

Ben Lando, editor in chief of the Iraq Oil Report, a trade publication that tracks oil deals in Iraq, told us in an email that though the agreement does give reason for optimism, "key areas of contention [between the two sides] have yet to be resolved."

Lando notes that issues such as Kurdistan's right to independently export and sell oil, Baghdad's claims that Kurdistan's contracts are illegal, and the control over fields that Kurdistan took from Baghdad in July have yet to be resolved.

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Iraq, Kurds Agree On Deal Over Oil Exports, Budget

Iraq's government and the autonomous Kurdish region say they've resolved their longstanding disputes over the budget and oil exports, boosting prospects of closer co-operation against jihadists.

Despite months of bad blood, the deal shows that the federal and Kurdish regional government still need each other.

Plummeting oil prices are financially squeezing the Baghdad government and Arbil is in desperate need of cash to pay its civil servants and shore up its security forces.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said the deal was approved during a cabinet meeting attended by Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.

Under the deal, due to take effect at the start of 2015, 250,000 barrels per day of oil will be exported from the autonomous region and another 300,000 bpd from the disputed province of Kirkuk.

"We have reached an agreement with the Iraqi government which will benefit both parties and whereby we will export 250,000 bpd of regional oil and help the federal government export the Kirkuk oil," Barzani told reporters.

Oil from the Kurdish region or claimed by its leadership will be shipped out via Kurdish pipelines but through the federal oil company.

In return, Baghdad will release the regional government's share of national revenue, which had been frozen for more than a year in retaliation for Arbil's efforts to export oil unilaterally.

The federal government also will give a share of its military budget to the Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

"The federal prime minister has expressed his readiness to guarantee one billion dollars from the Iraqi budget for the peshmerga forces," Barzani said.

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Iraq govt, Kurds agree budget, oil deal

Iranian warplanes have launched several airstrikes in recent days against Islamic State militants in eastern Iraq, U.S. and Iranian officials said Tuesday, the latest sign that America's longtime adversary is conducting a parallel but largely unacknowledged military campaign in the conflict.

At least some of the bombing runs were by F-4 Phantom jets, American-built warplanes provided to Tehran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a close U.S. ally.

In the shifting political landscape of the latest Iraq war, Tehran and Washington are in effect aligned on the same side and are conducting dual but separate military operations to back the beleaguered Baghdad government.

The U.S. and Iran have sent trainers and advisors to assist pro-government forces struggling against the Sunni Muslim fighters who swept into Iraq from Syria during the spring and summer. Iran's use of airstrikes marks an escalation of its role.

But U.S. and Iranian officials have repeatedly disavowed any direct coordination on military operations and have said little in public about the recent airstrikes.

Four Iranian jets attacked Islamic State positions during an offensive in Iraq last month to retake two towns, Saadiya and Jalawla, less than 20 miles from the Iranian border in the eastern province of Diyala, said Hamid Reza Taraghi, a conservative Iranian politician who is well informed on military matters.

"Iran regards the area as a buffer zone and does not tolerate any military threats within that buffer zone," Taraghi said in an interview in Tehran. He said Iraqi officials "asked us to be quiet about it."

Iraqi officials also have remained publicly silent about the airstrikes, although Baghdad approved the operation and ensured that the airspace was free of American or other coalition warplanes, said two U.S. military officials who declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

There have been "a few" recent Iranian airstrikes, one of the officials said.

"We are not coordinating with the Iranians," the official added. "Iraq owns the airspace."

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Recent Iran airstrikes in Iraq help drive Islamic State from 2 towns

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