Staff caught in the middle of Baghdad-Irbil oil dispute

Tensions have escalated between Iraq's central government in Baghdad and the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the country's north in a long-running dispute over the sharing of oil revenues.

- 

The central government has accused the Kurdish regional authorities of making illegal deals and facilitating oil smuggling. Baghdad cut off funding for public sector salaries in the Kurdish region ahead of the Eid Al-Adha holiday. Kurdish authorities called the move “collective punishment” and threatened to retaliate.

It's the latest flare-up in a long-running dispute between officials in Baghdad and Irbil, the seat of the Kurdish regional government, over sharing of oil revenues. In 2014, the Kurdish region decided to unilaterally export oil through an independent pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.