On Monday, Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani arrived in Baghdad at the head of a high-level government delegation to meet with his Iraqi counterpart Ali al-Zaidi and other Iraqi officials.

The main focus of the talks will be on securing the Kurdistan Region’s constitutional rights and financial entitlements, including its share of the 2027 federal budget.

Another high-level KRG negotiating delegation arrived in Baghdad on Sunday to continue discussions on the Kurdistan Region’s financial entitlements in the draft 2027 federal budget law.Salary delays and budget cuts by Baghdad have negatively impacted the economic situation in the Kurdistan Region since 2014 , although successive Iraqi governments have promised to reimburse salaries to Kurdish civil servants on time.

On September 29, the KRG demanded that the Kurdistan Region’s 14.14% share of Iraq’s population be maintained in the draft 2027 budget law, and accused Baghdad of reducing the Kurdistan Region’s population figures in Iraq’s census results.