Baghdad hints at retaking border control from KRG

By Haydar Hadi

BAGHDAD (AA) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Tuesday said Baghdad would not wait for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) regarding border gate control.

In a weekly news conference, al-Abadi said: "The KRG has withdrawn from the agreement it has made with the central government. As a result, we will take steps that will not be able to predict on the border control matter."

He asserted that Baghdad would not "wait until the end" for the transfer of border gate control from the KRG.

The KRG currently controls the Fishabur border crossing and the Ibrahim Khalil border gate, also known as the Habur crossing on the Turkish side.

Abadi brought up the economic recession in the country and asserted that the central government was "serious" about public-sector salary payments.

"As the central government, we are determined to pay the salaries of those state employees in the KRG." he said.

After the Daesh terrorist group overran Mosul, Nineveh’s provincial capital, in mid-2014, the Iraqi government stopped paying monthly salaries to all government employees within the city.

In early July 2017, hundreds of state-employed teachers demonstrated in Iraq’s southern Basra province to protest delays in the payment of their salaries for the second month in a row.