CIAO DATE: 02/2015
December 2014
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
On December 1 and 2, the federal Iraqi government and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) conducted three rounds of negotiations in Baghdad over the sharing of oil revenues in the 2015 budget. The talks marked the culmination of three months of intensifying discussion between federal and Kurdish leaders, which followed more than a year of U.S.-supported discussions between the two sides. The agreement also came against the backdrop of extremely challenging fiscal circumstances for Iraq caused by plummeting oil prices. The arrangement that emerged is foremost a "revenue-generating" rather than a "revenue-sharing" deal because it has been carefully crafted to generate new revenues for both Baghdad and the Kurds.
Resource link: Making the Iraqi Revenue-Generating Deal Work [PDF] - 63K