A high-level delegation of the Kurdistan Regional Government arrived in Baghdad today, Saturday, and tomorrow it will begin its meetings with federal government officials. The Kurdistan Regional Government said in a statement received by Al-Mutla’, that: “A high-level delegation from the Kurdistan Regional Government arrived in Baghdad to discuss the issue of employee salaries and amending the budget law, the region’s share, and the oil production law. It is worth noting that the delegation is headed by Awat Janab Nouri, Minister of Finance.” The region, Omid Sabah, Chief of the Cabinet Office, Amanj Rahim Amin, Secretary of the Council of Ministers, and Abdul Karim Khosrow, Head of the Coordination and Follow-up Office.
FIREFLY: CBI on news saying they have taken measures and decisions on supporting the dinar and maintaining its value against other currencies in the world talking about how CBI fully supports and back dinar and how it will be holding its own against other currencies. Saying this will positively affect the exchange rate.
FRANK: I am excited that they are giving you deeper information about the monetary reform and how it’s going to add value to your currency and I love how they keep saying in the coming days let’s see what happens around 15 January.
FIREFLY:Financial expert on TV saying there will be changes to the value to the Iraqi dinar after the new year.
FRANK: The CBI, without any fear, without pulling any punches back, they flat out tell you the beginning for next year your currency will have value added to it. Of course, because you won't be able to use any other currency in your country.
Therefore the sanctioned, punished program, used toilet paper rate of your 3-zero notes is going away...You are about to be a powerful linchpin in the financial theater of this world. Iraq is about to change as quickly as darkness turns into light. Get ready, you are about to walk with elegance and grace once again.
FIREFLY: The television is talking about how Iraq and a basket of currencies will help to reduce the dollar rate. They are already talking about the yuan and rupee... The government is saying we aspire to end the parallel market dollar in the coming days.
FIREFLY: We have a special on TV and they say the Iraqi dinar wins the struggle against the dollar and wins control of the markets…
FRANK: The goal of the last few weeks has been to bring the market rate parallel with the dollar rate. Remember the CBI can’t touch the dollar value but they can touch the value of your currency of the dinar… They have been victorious of reducing the value of their enemy foreign currency like the American dollar and all foreign currency in your country verses your national currency which is at 1310 right now. But that rate is now in a position to change because of all the success of the monetary reform from the CBI and Sudani. That’s all there is to it.
The black market rate will no longer be…The black market rate is the American dollar. The CBI wants the official rate 1310 to match the dollar rate. That means the currency of Iraq is too low… Slowly we’re having a reciprocal effect where the dollar is going down and the dinar is going up…
Question: “Can any country RV their currency whenever they want?”
Yeah but they have to go through the IMF. That’s what the International Monetary Fund does – they regulate all the banks around the world and allow them to either increase, decrease, print new currency, destroy their currency, change their exchange rate. There is a systematic way of doing it. They’re called international banking laws.
FIREFLY:Financial expert on TV saying there will be changes to the value to the Iraqi dinar after the new year.
FRANK: The CBI, without any fear, without pulling any punches back, they flat out tell you the beginning for next year your currency will have value added to it. Of course, because you won't be able to use any other currency in your country.
Therefore the sanctioned, punished program, used toilet paper rate of your 3-zero notes is going away...You are about to be a powerful linchpin in the financial theater of this world. Iraq is about to change as quickly as darkness turns into light. Get ready, you are about to walk with elegance and grace once again.
Kurdish politician Sardar Mustafa confirmed, on Saturday (January 6, 2024), that the Kurdistan region is part of Iraq and is affected by any security or political event in Iraq and the region.
Mustafa said in an interview with Baghdad today that “the region cannot support the exit of the international coalition from Iraq at the present time, as the coalition provides military and financial assistance to the Peshmerga forces.”
He added that “there are security concerns in the region that the withdrawal of the coalition may lead to an escalation of attacks against the region, and the increased risk of extremist groups, including ISIS.”
Mustafa pointed out that “any collapse of the security situation means this time the region entering the arena of war, this time is different from the previous times that Kurdistan was moving away from the arena of conflict, this time things seem different, and the region will be a party to the conflict, whether he wanted or father.”
Baghdad announced, on Friday (January 5, 2024), the formation of a bilateral committee with the United States, whose task is to determine arrangements for the termination of the mission of the international coalition to combat ISIS, led by Washington, in Iraq.
“We are in the process of determining the date for the start of the dialogue, through the bilateral committee that was formed to determine the arrangements for the end of this presence, a commitment that the government will not retract, and will not abandon everything that would complete national sovereignty over the land, sky and waters of Iraq,” Prime Minister, Mohammed Shiaaa Al-Sudani, said.
Al-Sudani stressed “the firm and principled position in ending the existence of the international coalition after the justifications for its existence ended.”
There are approximately 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, as part of Washington’s efforts to prevent the return of ISIS, which occupied large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
The formation of the committee comes a day after a drone targeted the headquarters of the “Al-Nujaba Movement”, which is part of the “Popular Mobilization” factions, which resulted in the martyrdom of the military official of the movement, Talib Ali Al-Saidi, nicknamed “Abu Taqwa.” Other elements were also martyred after the strike, according to those close to Al-Nujaba.
In a statement to Al-Hurra, a military official in the Pentagon explained that at 12 noon Iraq time, the US forces took a necessary and proportionate measure against Abu Taqwa, an official in the Nujaba movement, who was “involved in planning and launching attacks against American forces.”
The official added that the airstrike killed Abu Taqwa and another element.
“The air strike was launched in self-defense, did not harm civilians and no infrastructure or facility was hit,” he continued.
A U.S. official has previously confirmed that the United States “continues to take action to protect its forces in Iraq and Syria, and by addressing the threats it faces.”
The developments followed more than 110 attacks by U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since mid-October.
On the other hand, Al-Sudani said, on Friday, that “the most serious incidents are repeated more than once in Iraq through the international coalition forces carrying out attacks against the headquarters of the Popular Mobilization,” adding: “We have repeatedly stressed that in the event of a breach or abuse by any Iraqi party, or if Iraqi law is violated, the Iraqi government is the only party that has to follow up on the reas for these violations.”
THE IRAQI DINAR IS OUTSIDE THE LIST OF THE 15 WORST-PERFORMING CURRENCIES AGAINST THE DOLLAR IN 2023
The Lebanese pound was the worst-performing currency in 2023, as it fell by nearly 90% against the dollar, according to Bloomberg data.
As for the Argentine peso, it ranked second on the list, recording a decline of 78%, followed by the Nigerian naira, which declined by about 50% against the dollar at the end of last year.
The list below that did not witness the presence of the Iraqi dinar:
It is worth noting that data Bloomberg the official currency rates are based on central banks.
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PARLIAMENTARY ECONOMY DETERMINES THE FEATURES OF THE IMPACT OF “DOLLARIZATION” IN 2024
On Tuesday, member of the Parliamentary Economics Committee, Hussein Habib, identified the most prominent features of the impact of the continued dependence on the dollar on the country’s economy during 2024.
Habib said in an interview with Al-Maalouma, “Any decrease in the exchange rate of the dollar against the dinar is positive and will enhance the value of the latter and address the price pressure suffered by millions of people below the poverty line in the country, but on the other hand, any decrease cannot be achieved through wishes, but rather according to mechanisms.” An organization that adopts addresses the reason for the demand to buy the dollar from the parallel market.”
He added, “Dollarization has created exceptional conditions for Iraq’s economy in light of the import of approximately 90% of the market’s needs from abroad. That is, we export the dollar in the absence of industry, not to mention the impact of other sectors, including hospitals, because large numbers of citizens are forced to travel for the purpose of treatment and spend large sums of money.”
He pointed out that “dollarization, in reference to the parallel market, will remain influential in the economy as long as there is an absence of industry and production in large proportions, pointing to the necessity of openness to safe investment that attracts capital and restores its inflow in terms of rehabilitating services and opening horizons that contribute to expanding the circle of dependence of the dinar instead of the dollar in Internal financial transactions.
The dollar exchange market witnessed a gradual decline before it rose again in recent days amid uncertainty in its activity.
Armed clashes took place, yesterday, Friday, between the Iraqi groups of “Asa’i’ Ahl al-Haq” and “Jund al-Imam” in one of the towns in the city of Basra, during a ceremony organized to commemorate the assassination of the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the “Popular Mobilization”, Abu Mahdi Al-Mondis, which raises concern about the repetition of these clashes and increases the embarrassment of the position of the Iraqi government.
The Basra Mobilization Operations Command confirmed that the clash was carried out by groups it called “undisciplined” to reduce its impact. She stated, in a statement on Friday evening, that “the Popular Mobilization Authority in Basra organized the festival and uncontrolled and non-PF groups provoked sedition among the masses, which led to gunshots,” stressing that “these individuals, who belong to a person named (Alaa Al-Mohammadawi), were arrested and all legal measures will be taken against them.”
For his part, the official of the “Jund al-Imam” group, Alaa Al-Mohammadawi, said on the statement, criticizing his group’s description of the “undisciplined” group. Adding, in a statement, “We regret the statements and statements issued against us that stripped us of our jihadist history in defending the homeland, religion, doctrine and belonging to the holy crowd,” noting that “whatever is issued against us from our skin, we will not respond, in order to preserve the reputation of the mujahideen and the reputation of the crowd,” he said, but we will not accept to be stripped of belonging to the crowd.
The armed clash is not the first of its kind between the factions, as a similar clash took place 10 days ago and confrontations erupted between the military wing of the Sadrist movement, led by Muqtada al-Sadr, “Saraya Al-Peace” and militants from the “Ahl-Haq” militia in the area of the Al-Amel neighborhood in central Baghdad, due to the dispute over the uploading of a large picture that includes Qassem Soleimani and Abu Al-Mahdi Al-Mundis in the region, which is one of the most prominent areas of influence of the Sadrists.
The position of the Iraqi government
A political source familiar with the “new Arab” said that “these confrontations are an inevitable result of different agendas and interests, but the embarrassing thing in them is the position of the government, which represents the rule of the law,” and added, preferring not to be named, that “the frequency of confrontations is an indicator of the deepening state of differences and division between factions whose names have multiple names,” noting that “the government and security forces always seek to calm in order to preserve security.”
The source stressed that “the position of the Iraqi government is embarrassing, as these confrontations are a departure from the law and from the authority of the state and a threat to societal security, and that the government is required to apply the law to everyone, and that its attempts to calm down indicate weak government procedures and weak state authority.”
The scenes of armed clashes between various Iraqi factions with their agendas and destinations, which are repeated in the country’s governorates, raise the Iraqi government’s concern about its serious effects on community security and state authority in general, especially since these factions have a significant military strength and arsenal. As the government and security forces seek to calm down, politicians say the government is required to impose its authority on everyone.
During the past year 2023, the Iraqi provinces, especially Basra, recorded several confrontations, especially between the Asaib Ahl al-Haq group and the “Salam Brigades” group associated with the Sadrist movement, usually because of the struggle for influence, and caused the burning of headquarters and offices between the two parties, in addition to deaths and injuries between the two parties.