Abadi plays conciliator, as Baghdad fashions new relationship with Kurds

The re-opening of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah airports to international flights in mid-March, followed a few days later by the first central government payments in four years to state employees in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), reveals a tentative thaw in Erbil-Baghdad relations. The newlyempowered federal Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi is now strong enough to compromise with his chastened counterparts in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) – which Iraq’s western allies have been strongly encouraging him to do.