Kurdish deputies accused parliament of pushing the vote through without the participation of the Kurdish Alliance and with the absence of some deputies from Ayad ‘Allawi’s Iraqiya party.

So the dispute between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over oil payments is expected to linger on and the Kurdish Alliance intends to question the legality of the budget vote. The budget has allocated just ID750bn ($645mn) to the Kurds to settle overdue payments to oil investors, instead of the ID4,000bn ($3.4bn) requested by the KRG (MEES, 8 March). (CONTINUED - 1162 WORDS)