Salaries of Kurdistan Region Employees Deepen Iraqi Govt. Crisis

Arab World

April 27th, 7:59am

Baghdad - Asharq Al-Awsat

Prime Minister-designate Mustafa al-Kadhimi. (AFP)

The salaries of employees in the Kurdistan Region are the latest addition to Iraq’s crises. A Kurdish delegation recently visited Baghdad to hold negotiations over the new government, salaries and oil in the Kurdish region, revealing that pressure is being exerted to foil agreements between Baghdad and Erbil. A statement from the office of the deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan government, Qubad Talabani, said the delegation discussed in Baghdad the current economic crisis in Iraq. They cited the huge drop in oil revenues, which has prompted political pressure to foil deals between Kurdistan and Baghdad. Talabani stressed that protecting the people’s livelihood and salaries is the government’s priority. “We will maintain our efforts to preserve their livelihood and thwart all efforts aimed at undermining the financial rights of the people of the Kurdistan Region.” Meanwhile, in Baghdad, the issue of the “marginalization of Shiites from rule” has resurfaced, 17 years after Shiites took over power in Iraq. The “marginalization of Shiites and Kurds” was often brought up during the rule of late leader Saddam Hussein, who was Sunni. After the 2003 US invasion, the equation changed, with Shiites taking over, writing the constitution along with the Kurds and marginalizing the Sunni Arabs. Prime Minister-designate Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s efforts to form a new government have been met with accusations that he is favoring the Kurds and Sunnis over the Shiites, who in a rare show of unity, unanimously backed his nomination. Head of the Fateh parliamentary bloc Mohammed al-Ghabban called on Kadhimi to treat all blocs equally. Head of the Badr parliamentary bloc Hassan Shaker al-Kaabi openly accused Kadhimi of marginalizing Shiites. “When he was appointed, an agreement had been in place for him to treat each bloc equally. The Shiites gave him flexibility in naming his lineup, but he should have at least come up with a fair one.” “We will not accept the marginalization of Shiites,” he stressed. Head of Iraqi Center for Political Thought Ihsan al-Shammari told Asharq Al-Awsat that Kadhimi’s attempt to approach each of the Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni blocs from an equal distance is an attempt to balance out the pressure he is coming under from them and it could also be a political maneuver. He realizes that withdrawing his nomination will negatively impact the parties that named him and he is therefore, trying to approach each party equally and strike a balance between the forces whereby power is distributed equally among them.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2254931/salaries-kurdistan-region-employees-deepen-iraqi-govt-crisis