Iraqi President Fuad Masum refused the 2018 draft budget approved by the Iraqi parliament over "constitutional violations", which took reaction from the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Commenting on his official twitter account, Abadi said that no one has the right to refuse the budget that approved by the parliament.

"We are sending it (the budget) back to the parliament to amend the legal and constitutional violations we pointed out," Iraqi Presidential Office said in a written statement.

It is said that the objections made by the President Fuad Masum are influenced by Regional Government, who is regarded as the most important representative of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government in the Iraqi Central Government.

Masum, a childhood friend of Jalal Talabani, was brought by parliament as a new president of Iraq on July 24, 2014.

Budget crisis between Erbil and Baghdad

The Iraqi parliament endorsed the 2018 budget proposal on the session, which was boycotted by some parties on March 3.

The share of the Kurdistan Region in the past years, 17 percent, was set at 12.67 percent on the 2018 budget.

The Iraqi Parliament has raised the budget of the Kurdistan Region from 12.67 percent to 14 percent in the session held on March 5.

In Iraq in the past years, budgets were shaped mainly by political alliances between Baghdad and Erbil. The resulting alliances were the result of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) receiving a share of 17 percent from the budget.

ILKHA