iraqi kurdish leaders on saturday denounced amendments over oil in the draft federal budget delaying a parliamentary vote more than two months after legislators received the budget plan oil has been a source of recurrent tension between kurdistans autonomous regional government and federal authorities in baghdad kurdish leaders see the budget amendments as contradictory to an agreement concluded in april over oil exports iraqi kurdistans prime minister masrour barzani said saturday the changes amounted to treason and an affront to iraqi kurdish rights while nechirvan barzani the iraqi kurdistan president said he was deeply concerned about the changes the federal government in midmarch sent the draft threeyear budget to parliament where changes were introduced to the original text the kurdish regional government had for years earned billions of dollars in revenues exporting 475000 barrels of oil daily to turkey without the iraqi federal governments approval but in march the region was forced to halt its lucrative sales following international arbitration ruling in favour of baghdads exclusive rights over exports the april deal cleared the way for resuming exports and stipulated that baghdads state oil marketing organization somo would manage the oil sales revenues from the sales would be paid into a bank account overseen by baghdad and the kurdish autonomous region would also receive a share of the federal budget it said it now says the kurdish region must first deliver 400000 barrels of oil daily to the federal authorities along with nonoil revenues before it can receive its federal budget allocation according to kurdish iraqi economist govand sherwani sherwani the original draft he said had guaranteed that kurdistan would receive its share of the budget without condition as a constitutional right furthermore the changes stipulate that kurdish oil revenues would be deposited in an account belonging to the iraqi finance ministry at the iraqi central bank instead of an international bank account as previously agreed sherwani said in a country where political agreements are concluded after endless negotiations between political parties the objection of the kurds is delaying a parliamentary vote on the budget iraqs oil dependent economy has traditionally been plagued by budget delays which the governments threeyear proposal aimed to avoid