ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid’s legal team revealed on Sunday that the president had instructed them to file a lawsuit against Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani regarding the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants.

In a press conference on Sunday, Hawre Tofiq, an advisor to the president said that they “had filed this complaint before the Federal Supreme Court on January 20,” but were awaiting a court verdict before going public with the matter.

According to the lawsuit, which The New Region obtained a copy of, the lawsuit is made up of four key elements.

The lawsuit demands that the Federal Court issue an urgent order that would oblige the federal government to pay the salaries of Kurdistan civil servants on a continuous basis without interruption.

Furthermore, the lawsuit asks for obliging the Federal Ministry of Finance to allocate the salaries of all previous months and upcoming months without stopping, and the digitalization of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants’ monthly salaries similar to Iraq.

One of Baghdad's conditions is that the revised trial balance must be completed and sent over by the Kurdistan Region every month before they send the salaries for the next month. 

Salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants and the Region’s share of the federal budget have long been a point of contention between the federal and regional governments. 

Years of conflict and unresolved issues between Erbil and Baghdad, and economic sanctions and pressure on Erbil by federal authorities, have pushed employees in the Region to live from paycheck to paycheck.

KRG spokesperson Peshawa Hawramani in January told The New Region that for the last quarter of 2024 Baghdad sent less than two trillion dinars to the KRG for civil servant salaries, an amount that was around a trillion dinars short of the amount needed to pay the salaries of the last three months of last year, despite prior agreements between Erbil and Baghdad.

Based on the 2024 Iraqi general population census, the Kurdistan Region makes up around 14 percent of the overall Iraqi population, and therefore is constitutionally entitled to 14 percent of the federal budget. Hawramani said that Baghdad has paid the KRG only seven percent of the budget share.

In January, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani led an irregular meeting of the Council of Ministers with Kurdish ministers in the federal government and heads of parliamentary blocs in the Iraqi parliament, aimed at discussing the next steps for the Kurdish representation in the political process in Baghdad amid ongoing budget issues.

Barzani tasked the Kurdish federal ministers with informing Baghdad that Erbil needs guarantees that 2025 salaries will be paid without any issues and demands its full share of the budget starting 2026, warning of a firmer stance otherwise.

The lawsuit comes despite the KRG’s finance minister announcing in early February that the KRG had reached an agreement with the Iraqi federal government to finance the salaries of the Region's civil servants for the entirety of 2025 "without any issues.”