WASHINGTON — Haider Al-Abadi, chairman of the Iraqi parliament's treasury committee, warned that “if not handled properly” the dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq over oil revenues “can lead to the disintegration of the country.” The impasse can affect other regions of Iraq, Al Abadi said, and “it looks very bad when it is perceived by other areas, by Basra, which is producing 85%” of the Iraqi budget.

Al-Abadi, a senior leader in Iraq’s Dawa Party and one of Iraq’s most influential parliamentarians, said Iraqi Kurdistan is illegally exporting oil to Iran and Turkey and selling it at 45% of market price.  While he blamed the Iraqi Kurdish leadership for “not seeing beyond their nose” and “not seeing the big picture,” Al Abadi emphasized “we are very keen to solve” the problem. Otherwise, he added: “The next step is not to give Kurdistan their share of the budget revenues because they are not giving their shares of the oil production.”

Al-Abadi, who spoke with Al-Monitor Editor/CEO Andrew Parasiliti in Washington, said the spike in bombings in Iraq is related to the war in Syria, including attempts by terrorists to scare away Iraqis from participating in the provincial elections, which took place on April 20. It is now well known, he said, that terrorist groups operating in Syria have made Iraq a target as well. Last month, Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria and al-Qaeda in Iraq announced their alliance.  Arms are regularly smuggled from Syria into Iraq.

Al-Abadi said that “we are very hard at work on a political solution” to the war in Syria and have reached out to the Syrian opposition, including “clandestine contacts” with both Islamist and nationalist factions. But Al-Abadi lamented: “The whole thing is dragging into sectarianism, there is no accommodation.”