ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Bafel Talabani on Tuesday visited the tent of teachers on a hunger strike in Sulaimani protesting unpaid salaries, with the strike entering its eighth day.
“President Bafel Jalal Talabani cut short his trip to the United States of America in order to closely pressure the regional and Baghdad administrations to find a long-term solution to this problem, which is a citizen's right,” said a statement from the PUK politburo.
“A radical solution must be found to this issue that has been prolonged without justification,” it added.
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. The teachers say they are adamant about obtaining their rights despite little support from Erbil and Baghdad.
The federal Iraqi government and KRG have held several meetings to discuss amendments to the previously approved 2025 federal budget law and address obstacles to paying the Kurdistan Region’s civil servant salaries. The KRG has been working to redirect funds from its share of the federal budget to address salary shortfalls that persisted throughout last year.
On Monday, the Kurdistan Region’s finance minister announced that Erbil and Baghdad had struck an agreement to resolve their financial disputes related to the payment of civil servants’ salaries in the Kurdistan Region.
The KRG’s struggles aggravated after oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline were suspended in March 2023. On Sunday, the Iraqi parliament passed a bill that sought to resume the exports. The resumption of oil exports is expected to boost Iraq’s income, increasing the budget that the Region receives from Baghdad.
