US sends long-awaited Peshmerga salaries: ministry

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — After two months of waiting, some 30,000 Peshmerga will be paid this week, according to the Peshmerga Ministry, which announced on Thursday it has received funds for the salaries from the United States. 

“After a long wait, three salaries of the Peshmerga Ministry’s infantry brigades were distributed today,” the ministry said in a Facebook post Thursday afternoon. Minister Shorash Ismail later said the payments will be made on Thursday and Friday.
 
There are around 30,000 Peshmerga fighters in 13 brigades who receive their salaries from US funding. The US has provided military and financial aid, as well as training, to Peshmerga forces since 2014. It previously paid the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) $20 million monthly to cover Peshmerga salaries. 

This year, however, the payments were delayed. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Peshmerga official told Rudaw English on March 24 that “the situation of the Peshmerga forces is really bad. They have not been paid for over 50 days. The government is playing a mental game with them, telling them they will get three salaries at once, then saying they will get two, but they have had none.”

According to sources, the US delayed payments because it was upset the Peshmerga Ministry was not making progress on a reform program to establish a united, apolitical fighting force. The two main ruling parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), each maintain their owned armed forces that are not eligible to receive their salaries under the US scheme.

A senior official from the office of Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said the delayed payment is a “technical issue to a change of US administrations. It is outside of KRG’s control.”