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Business Daily: Baghdad Budget Dispute

Kurdish Oil

06/04/2015

Baghdad Budget Dispute

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Baghdad Budget Dispute

Is the biggest threat to Kurdistan, Islamic State, the low oil price or Baghdad?

The biggest threat to Iraqi Kurdistan may not come from Islamic State or the low oil price, but from the central government.

Ed Butler visits Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan where the biggest threat of may not come from Islamic State or the low oil price, but from the central government. Over the last year a budget dispute with Baghdad has caused state revenues to dry up with many workers and the army owed months of pay. Some are calling this a threat to Kurdistan's survival. Ed talks to Faridon Jwanroyi the Kurdish commander who defended the road to Erbil from IS. Plus he speaks to Hejar Azad, the general manager of the Khazar refinery who tells him the workers there decided to stay even when they could see the black flags of advancing IS troops just a few miles away.
(Photo: Guard at Kurdish oil refinery, Credit: Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images)

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