PUK MP: Kurdistan citizens have a constitutional right to economic benefits

Kurdistan 10:51 AM - 2023-01-26

Iraqi Supreme Court canceled the parliament's decision to pay 400 billion dinars to the Kurdistan Region.

The political agreement to establish the new Iraqi government emphasized that the "salaries and budget" of the Kurdistan Region must be free of political controversy, but the Iraqi Supreme Court has overturned the decision of the Iraqi parliament to pay the region 400 billion dinars.
 
The formation of the State Administration Alliance, which consists of the vast majority of the political parties in the Iraqi government, including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), will lay the groundwork for negotiations between Baghdad and Erbil on the budget, salaries, oil and gas laws, and Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution.
 
The PUK delegation, led by President Bafel Jalal Talabani, has made it clear in meetings of the State Administration Alliance and discussions to form a new government that "the lives of the residents of the region should not be mixed with political conflicts."
 
Based on this, the PUK worked to have 400 billion dinars sent to the Kurdistan Region for November and December 2022, and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Sudani decided to do so. The Federal Court, on the other hand, heard the complaint against Sudani in relation to the Iraqi parliament's decisions to designate the Ministry of Finance to send the specified amount of money to the Kurdistan Region and revoked six of the parliament's decisions regarding sending money to the Kurdistan Region.
 
Midway through June 2022, the Iraqi parliament approved the transfer of 400 billion dinars to the Kurdistan Region for the payment of November and December salaries, but the Ministry of Finance has not yet done so.
 
In reaction, several political personalities and observers in Iraq criticized the Federal Court's ruling.
 
"The problematic relations between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad are the major reason why the Federal Court always uses the livelihood of the people as a weapon against the people of the Kurdistan Region," Dr. Narmin Maruf, a member of the Finance Committee in the Iraqi parliament, told PUKMEDIA.
 
Despite the fact that the Kurdistan Region has not received any compensation from the Iraqi government for the harm the Iraqi dictatorship caused, she asserted that "the citizens of the region have a constitutional right to benefit from the country's economy as do those of other Iraqi provinces."
 
"We have made every effort to keep political disputes out of the livelihoods of the people of the Kurdistan Region, but the Federal Court has repeatedly ruled against them and punished them with different justifications," Maruf said.
 
Nawfal Hamdani, an Iraqi political analyst, tweeted, "I am against the policy of starvation, and the Kurdistan Region is part of Iraqi society. Do not combine these beloved people with your corruption."
 
Political analyst Ali Baydar affirms that the Federal Court's decision to cancel all of the Iraqi parliament's decisions will spark a new crisis that will have an impact on the government's ability to function after a period of relatively stable politics in the country.
 
"People in the Kurdistan Region are the decision's first victims and must be free from political conflicts," Baydar said in a tweet.
 

Translated from Kurdish by Besha Jawhar, additional editing by Zareena Younis
PUKMEDIA