The Prime Minister of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Nechirvan Barzani, held talks with representatives from the G7 countries, the EU and the World Bank in Erbil on 7 March, during which he requested financial assistance. Low oil prices are hitting the KRG hard with public sector salaries slashed last month (MEES, 5 February). But the ongoing outage of the region’s crude oil export pipeline to Turkey has further exacerbated the situation and oil revenues more than halved in February, while the use of pre-payments by buyers means more pain is likely on the way.