An Iraqi Vice President, after meeting with the President of the Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani, has announced that he is ready to ignore the referendum results in return for the lifting of sanctions against Erbil.

One of Iraq’s three Vice Presidents, Osama al-Nujaifi, who has recently met in Sulaymaniyah with Masoud Barzani, said the seccessiont referendum in the Kurdistan region was a wrong decision taken unilaterally.

“Al Arabiya website quoted al-Nujaifi as saying that Barzani has voiced his readiness to suspend the referendum in return for the lifting of sanctions against the Kurdistan region and the start of negotiations,” wrote Entekhab news website in a Farsi report.

This comes as Erbil and Baghdad are still at odds amid consequences of the referendum in Kurdistan region.

Recently, Iraqi Vice Presidents Ayad Allawi and Osama al-Nujaifi met with Barzani in Sulaymaniyah and reached a four-point agreement on initiating talks and lifting sanctions on the Kurdistan region. However, Baghdad considered the agreement non-binding stressing that it would never recognize the referendum.

Under such circumstances, al-Nujaifi says that Barzani is ready to ignore the separation referendum results if the talks open, and the sanctions are removed.

Meanwhile, Hayman Hurami, the political adviser at the office of the Kurdish Region’s President, has referred to the meeting of the speaker of the Iraqi parliament with the president of the Kurdistan region and wrote on his Twitter page that Barzani has informed al-Jabouri he is ready for talks with Baghdad and the central government without any preconditions.

However, the spokesman for the Iraqi government Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf has called for guarantees from the Kurdish region government to adhere to maintaining unity in the country.

The Shiite coalition in Iraq, in turn, has criticized the visit of the country’s parliament speaker to Erbil and his meeting with Barzani, describing it as disappointing.

Another Iraqi Vice President, Nouri al-Maliki, has strongly rejected any dialogue and reconciliation between Baghdad and Erbil before cancelling the results of the plebiscite.