“The KDP’s Executive Committee deems it necessary to hold a broad meeting with the political parties to discuss the current situation,” read the invitation, Rudaw has learned.
The Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party was among those invited and will attend, party spokesperson Farhad Tofiq confirmed to Rudaw.
The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) has not received an invitation yet, according to Salahaddin Abubakir, an assistant to the party’s secretary general, but they are ready to attend if invited.
The meeting will take place in Pirmam, Erbil province at 11 am on Saturday, Rudaw understands.
New Generation, the strongest opposition party in the Region, said in a statement on Friday that it has been invited but will not attend, noting that such meetings should be held in the parliament.
“In the New Generation's view, the Kurdistan parliament is the reference point for the people of Kurdistan and is elected by the people. Therefore, the Kurdistan parliament must be reactivated. For any party wishing to organize a meeting at the level of Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan parliament is the only place that we, as New Generation, agree to,” read the statement.
The parliament has met just once since the election last October as the ruling parties have yet to reach a power-sharing deal in government formation talks.
Finances are a frequent source of friction between Erbil and Baghdad, but tensions escalated after the Iraqi Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday that it would no longer send Kurdistan Region’s financial entitlements from the federal budget, including the salaries of over one million civil servants of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Baghdad accused Erbil of failing to hand over its oil and non-oil revenues and claimed that the KRG has received its full share of the federal budget for 2025. The Iraqi government has paid the salaries of the KRG’s civil servants for the first four months this year, but the Finance Ministry’s announcement raises questions about what will happen for the remainder of the year.
The KDP warned Baghdad on Thursday that it would take a “serious stance” if it fails to pay the May salaries by June 6, which coincides with the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha.
The KDP is a member of Iraq’s governing State Administration Coalition, which includes the Shiite-led Coordination Framework, the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The coalition formed in September 2022 and nominated Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani as prime minister. It holds 275 of the 329 seats in the Iraqi parliament.
Shakhawan Abdullah, deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament and a KDP member, said that it is time for Kurds to withdraw from the Iraqi government.
The KDP, PUK, New Generation, KIU and the Justice Group (Komal) issued a joint statement on Thursday calling on Sudani to "intervene urgently to release the salaries of employees in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and not to link citizens' rights to any political or technical disputes."
They said that payment of salaries "is not a favor but a constitutional and humanitarian entitlement guaranteed by the Constitution and laws to its holder and delaying or stopping it is considered a collective punishment borne only by the employee. We also demanded a radical and permanent solution to the salary problem."
The Finance Ministry’s decision to cease payments to Erbil came on the heels of the KRG inking two new oil and gas deals with American firms, drawing the ire of Iraq’s Oil Ministry, which said all energy deals must go through Baghdad and filed a lawsuit over the matter.
