Iraq's parliament approves $119.1 billion budget

Iraq's parliament approved on Thursday a $119.1 billion (91.6 billion euro) budget for 2013 after weeks of delay, but Kurdish representatives and most members of the main Sunni-backed bloc did not attend, MPs said. Parliament has struggled to pass even key legislation such as the budget due to political disputes that have deadlocked the body.
"The vote was held today on all the articles of the budget," Ali Shlah, an MP from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law bloc, told AFP. There were 168 out of 325 MPs present at the time of the vote, Shlah said, explaining that Kurdish MPs and about three-quarters of those from the secular, Sunni backed Iraqiya bloc did not attend.
MP Alaa Talabani told AFP the Kurdish representatives stayed away because they consider the amount of money allocated in the budget to pay foreign oil companies operating in autonomous Kurdistan to be insufficient. The budget allocates about $16.9 billion, or 14.1 percent of the total, to security and defence, according to parliament's website.