US vice-president Joe Biden has welcomed an agreement between Iraq's central government and its northern Kurdistan region over the management of oil exports.

After years of friction, the two sides have struck a deal in which Kurds will give half of their overall oil shipments to the federal government and Baghdad will pay overdue civil servants' salaries in the region. "I was encouraged to see the recent interim agreement," Biden told an Atlantic Council summit on energy and the economy in Istanbul yesterday.