As Kurds and Iraqis struggled to resolve their differences this week, Baghdad and Moscow were doing the same, albeit with much less animosity.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari visited Moscow to discuss with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov how to develop economic ties and contain terror groups such as the Islamic State and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. But their focus during the Oct. 23-25 visit was the potential repercussions of last week's battle between forces of Iraq's central government and those of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly voted for independence Sept. 25. Last week, Baghdad overwhelmingly crushed that hope, at least for the near future, and reclaimed much of the territory the KRG had held since 2014 — including an airport, a military base and highly prized oil wells.

While the foreign minister's visit seemed to show that Moscow and Baghdad are experiencing no major controversies, there was one prickly issue. Baghdad’s only complaint against Moscow came from its Oil Ministry on Oct. 19, the day after Russia's state-owned oil industry giant Rosneft announced new contracts with the KRG in Erbil. The Oil Ministry called contracts made without reports to the central government in Baghdad “blatant interference in Iraq’s internal affairs, a violation of its national sovereignty and of the international norms."