ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Bafel Talabani expressed on Sunday that the formation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will be complicated, but noted that talks with the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) are progressing "very well." Speaking at the Baghdad International Dialogue conference, Talabani compared the KRG formation process to the United States President, Donald Trump, a Republican, forming a government with his foes, the Democrats. “I believe the [formation of the new Kurdistan Regional] Government will face many complications and challenges,” Talabani said. The Kurdistan Region held its delayed parliamentary elections in October, but political parties have yet to reach an agreement on the shape of the new government. The KDP won the most seats in the October ballot, securing 39 out of 100 spots in the Region’s legislature. The PUK came in second with 23 seats. Despite the delays, Talabani said that talks with the KDP “are better than expected and are going very well,” adding that his party’s approach to negotiations has evolved. He elaborated that, “We are not focused on posts. Our focus is on [building] a strategic alliance [with the KDP], one where we can understand each other's definition of partnership and direction for the future.” Earlier this month, Kurdistan Region Deputy Prime Minister and senior PUK member, Qubad Talabani, told Rudaw that the formation of the tenth KRG cabinet was progressing smoothly. He urged the people of the Kurdistan Region to "be patient with us as we are working to form the best government" in the Region’s "history of governance." Commenting on the unpaid salary crisis of public servants in the Kurdistan Region, Bafel Talabani on Sunday attributed them to a "lack of trust,” stressing that confidence with the people needs to be rebuilt. Public sector employees in the Region have been striking for around two months due to unpaid salaries. Efforts by both the federal government and the KRG to address the crisis led to a new agreement on the payment of Erbil’s share of the 2025 federal budget. Bafel Talabani also touched on financial reforms, specifically the salary localization systems Tawtin and MyAccount. Baghdad’s Tawtin initiative aims to pay the salaries of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants through bank accounts, while the KRG introduced MyAccount in 2023 under Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, as an alternative system to Tawtin. "We are having negotiations on Tawtin and MyAccount, and they are going very well thanks to [Kurdistan Region] Prime Minister Masrour Barzani," Talabani said. While acknowledging that technical challenges had emerged during the discussions, he added, “My hope is that together, we can develop a program that ensures transparency.” Talabani concluded, “I genuinely believe we have an opportunity to create something that will be more acceptable to the population” of the Kurdistan Region.
