°®Âþµº

°Õ±ð²Ô²õ¾±´Ç²Ô²õÌýescalatedÌýon Sunday at the Degala Checkpoint near Erbil, the capital city of ±õ°ù²¹±ç’s Kurdistan Region, as Kurdish security forces loyal to rival political factions blocked a group of teachers attempting to enter the city to continue their hunger strike in front of the UN headquarters.

Public schools have been closed in most parts of the region due to unpaid salaries.

Thirteen teachers from Sulaymaniyah have been on hunger strike for nearly two weeks, demanding their unpaid salaries and protesting worsening living conditions in the Kurdistan Region. The crackdown at the checkpoint highlights the ongoing political and security divide between the two dominant Kurdish parties.

As the teachers attempted to bring their demonstration to Erbil, Kurdish security forces used tear gas and physical force to disperse them. Reports indicate that some demonstrators and journalists were beaten and suffocated due to inhaling tear gas, while journalists had their cameras and equipment confiscated.

"Thirteen teachers and demonstrators have been on hunger strike for 13 days. Our demands from the Kurdish authorities are the restoration of dignity for the people of Kurdistan, the nationalisation of salaries, the depoliticisation of wages, the resumption of pay rises, and the establishment of a mechanism for repaying pending salaries," Othman Gulpi, the spokesperson for the demonstrators, told °®Âþµº.

Gulpi stated that UN representatives had visited their protest site in Sulaymaniyah, received their demands, and were discussing them with relevant Iraqi and Kurdish authorities. However, he affirmed that the hunger strike would continue until the strikers themselves decided otherwise.

He also said that the Kurdish security forces at the Degala Checkpoint turned the teachers away, enforcing their response with tear gas and a heavy security presence.

Political Deadlock Delays KRG Cabinet Formation

The Kurdistan Region held parliamentary elections in October, but the winning parties have yet to agree on forming a new cabinetÌýfor the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which has governed the autonomous region since 1992.

The ongoing power struggle between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has exacerbated tensions, with neither party willing to concede key positions in the government. The inability to finalise a new cabinet has stalled efforts to resolve pressing economic issues, including unpaid public sector salaries. While teachers in Sulaymaniyah and Halabja provinces have been boycotting classes since early this month, teachers continue to attend classes in the Erbil and Duhok provinces.

The KDP controls the Erbil and Duhok provinces, while the PUK governs Sulaymaniyah and Halabja. As teachers in PUK-held areas do not fear boycotts and protesting, their counterparts in KDP-held areas fear reprisals.

This division stems from an internal Kurdish conflict that erupted between 1994 and 1998, resulting in a deep political and military split that continues to shape governance in the Kurdistan Region.

Despite improved relations between the two factions, their separate security forces still operate independently. One end of the Degala Checkpoint is controlled by KDP-aligned security forces, while the other end is manned by PUK-affiliated forces. The existence of such divided checkpoints reflects the unresolved legacy of the Kurdish civil war and the difficulties in integrating the region’s defence forces.

Earlier in the day, Omed Khoshnaw, the governor of Erbil, defended the crackdown, stating in a press conference that the demonstrations were unlicensed and that authorities would not allow protesters to enter the city. He accused them of attempting to create chaos.

KRG Ministry of Interior Responds

In a statement, the KRG Ministry of Interior said that the government had always prioritised the legitimate demands of employees and various societal groups, working in coordination with Baghdad to address their concerns. However, the ministry warned that certain internal and external parties were attempting to exploit these protests for political purposes.

The statement accused banned factions, including the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), of leveraging the situation to destabilise security in the Kurdistan Region. While emphasising respect for the right to protest, the ministry stated that any actions disrupting regional security or violating legal frameworks would not be tolerated.

The KRG has frozen pay rises for all public sector employees since 2016, citing financial constraints due to falling oil prices and ongoing battles against the Islamic State group. Additionally, the KRG failed to pay the December salaries of the past year to nearly 1.2 million public employees and has only recently begun processing January wages for this year, as inflation is skyrocketing in the region.

The KRG claims it cannot pay salaries without federal funding, while the Iraqi Ministry of Finance refutes this, stating that it has sent full budget allocations to the region. However, Baghdad has accused the KRG of withholding half of its local revenues instead of transferring them to the federal government.

Legal Disputes Over Oil Revenue

On 23 February 2023, ±õ°ù²¹±ç’s Supreme Federal Court ruled that the KRG must hand over all oil and non-oil revenues to Baghdad. The court mandated the Iraqi government to pay the salaries of KRG civil servants, with Kurdish authorities required to cooperate by nationalising wages through electronic payments.

Recently, ±õ°ù²¹±ç’s parliament endorsed a budget amendment to subsidise production costs for international oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region.

The amendment increased compensation rates to $16 per barrel for transport and production costs. The KRG is required to transfer 400,000 barrels of oil per day to ±õ°ù²¹±ç’s State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO), in exchange for 12.6% of the total federal budget of 210 trillion Iraqi dinars.

The Kurdistan Region's oil exports remain in limbo after Turkey halted the flow of crude through the KRG pipeline in March 2023. This move followed an International Chamber of Commerce ruling that ordered Turkey to compensate Baghdad $1.5 billion for unauthorised oil exports between 2014 and 2018, resulting in an estimated $19 billion loss in revenue for Iraq.

Despite recent efforts to resolve the dispute, oil exports from the Kurdistan Region have yet to resume, further deepening the economic crisis affecting the region’s public sector employees.