Kurdistan
KRG Finance Minister Awat Sheikh Janab speaking to reporters in Baghdad on February 3, 2025. Photo: Rudaw
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region’s finance minister announced on Monday that Erbil and Baghdad have reached an agreement to resolve their financial disputes related to the payment of the salaries of civil servants in the Kurdish region.
“We would like to announce that the issue of the civil servants for 2025 has been resolved. The measures for the disbursement of the January salary will begin tomorrow or the next day. We hope that the subject of the civil servants’ salaries will no longer be news,” Finance Minister Awat Sheikh Janab told reporters in Baghdad following days of meetings with the federal officials.
Kurdistan Region’s civil servants have not received the salaries of December and January due to disagreement between Erbil and Baghdad over the Region’s financial entitlements.
On Sunday, the Iraqi parliament passed a bill that seeks to resume the exports nearly two years after the flow of the Kurdish oil to the international markets was halted. The resumption of oil exports is expected to boost Iraq’s income, increasing the budget that the Region received from Baghdad.
Teachers in Sulaimani have camped in front of a United Nations office on a hunger strike, demanding a resolution to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) decade-long inconsistent salary payments, with many months over the years remaining unpaid. With bloodshot eyes and weakened bodies, some receive IV therapy, while medical professionals and family members tend to them.
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said on Monday that he is “closely monitoring” the situation of these teachers, adding that “Resolving the salary issue and financial entitlements of the Kurdistan Region is a legitimate demand that we all support.”
He noted that the Kurdistan Region Presidency and the government “have made significant efforts with the federal government,” considering the passage of the bill on Sunday as “a result of dialogue and understanding between both sides and with the cooperation of relevant parties.”
He said the demands of the striking teachers and other civil servants “have fully reached the relevant parties, so I ask them to consider their health conditions and end their strike. We assure all parties that the Kurdistan Region will continue its efforts to resolve all issues with the federal government of Iraq.”
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