ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region Finance Minister Awat Sheikh Janab on Sunday said the Region is capable of living off its own revenues and criticized Baghdad’s recent decision to halt budget payments, calling the situation “artificial” and the justifications “laughable.”
“We will certainly not submit to Baghdad, and if they don’t send salaries, we can live off domestic income and oil revenues, and we have alternative plans… what [Iraqi Finance Minister] Taif Sami is doing is illegal,” Janab told Rudaw without further elaboration. “The clause they wrote is laughable.”
The remarks came after Sami on Wednesday announced that the federal government would no longer send the Kurdistan Region’s financial entitlements from the budget, including the salaries of over one million public sector employees. The decision sparked a sharp backlash from Kurdish political parties.
“The situation created now is an artificial condition,” Janab stressed, adding that “Iraq does not want the Region to advance.”
Baghdad’s finance ministry cited the KRG’s alleged failure to hand over oil and non-oil revenues to justify that Erbil had already received its full share of the federal budget for 2025. Janab outright rejected the rationale.
“The numbers are made up, and I can say they are very, very ugly,” he stated.
On Saturday, Kurdish parties held a meeting chaired by the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), denouncing Baghdad’s move as against “the political and legal framework of the Kurdistan Region.”
Janab said that the decision to halt budget transfers was not rooted in genuine obstacles, as Erbil has met the vast majority of Baghdad’s requests.
“I can say that we have fulfilled 90 percent of Baghdad’s requests. We have transparently dealt with Baghdad,” he continued.
On Saturday, Rahim al-Aboudi, a senior figure in Iraq’s National Wisdom Movement (Hikma) and part of the Shiite-led Coordination Framework, said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani had pledged to send the Region’s salaries “as a loan” if the KRG commits to handing over its revenues and resolving audit matters.
Janab rejected receiving the May salaries as a loan.
“The word loan should not be accepted. How will you loan what is your right?” Janab responded. “When they have given us loans before, it has been from our allocation [of the federal budget].”
In 2023, Baghdad loaned the KRG salaries for three months.
The finance minister, however, expressed optimism that the issue might be resolved diplomatically. “I am optimistic that the good men in the Iraqi political arena are working to resolve this issue,” he said.
On Sunday, Aboudi said a delegation from the Coordination Framework will visit Erbil to ease tensions.
“From a trusted source, [we know that] nothing [no budget] has been sent,” Janab noted, but said that there are efforts to send the salaries before Eid al-Adha on Friday.
Tensions between Baghdad and Erbil escalated in parallel with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) recent major energy agreements with American firms, prompting the Iraqi oil ministry to take legal action.
Janab acknowledged wider systemic issues in Iraq, including corruption: “In the [Kurdistan] Region, like the rest of Iraq, there is a corruption problem… it exists in Iraq and the Region too.”
Janab also addressed long-standing budget disputes. He accused Baghdad of slashing the Region’s share from 17 percent, based on population, to 12 percent in retaliation for the KRG’s independent oil exports through Turkey that began in 2014. “They did not pay the Region’s salaries for 2014, 2015, and 2016,” he said.
On Sunday, Iraq's Federal Supreme Court announced that it registered a lawsuit filed by public servants in the Kurdistan Region seeking an injunction to ensure continued salary payments. However, a senior Iraqi government source told Rudaw on Monday that a ruling is unlikely soon, as some court members are currently on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia for Hajj.
Ranj Sangawi and Sangar Abdulrahman contributed to this report.