ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Muslim clerics used their Eid addresses on Friday to criticize the federal government’s decision to stop sending funds to cover Kurdistan Region civil servant salaries ahead of the important Islamic holiday.
“People sacrifice unlawful things for the sake of lawful things. People sacrifice with animal blood for the sake of liberating humans. They [the federal government] sacrificed the interests of the people of the Kurdistan Region. Now they have sacrificed people's salaries and livelihood - the thousands of employees, retirees, and low-income earners of this region,” Bashir Hadad said at Jalil Khayat mosque in Erbil.
Eid al-Adha, feast of the sacrifice, is one of the two main Muslim holidays. It marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca when people sacrifice animals and share the food with the poor, family, and friends.
Haddad accused the federal authorities of using the Hajj pilgrimage as an excuse to shirk their duties, cutting salaries and impoverishing families ahead of Eid. This is a “human and constitutional crime,” he said.
Tensions between Erbil and Baghdad escalated last week when the Iraqi finance ministry said it would halt all budget transfers to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), including salaries for public sector employees for the remainder of the year.
Iraqi Finance Minister Taif Sami accused Erbil of exceeding its share of the 2025 federal budget by over $10 billion, a figure KRG Finance Minister Awat Sheikh Janab said was “made up.”
Clerics and religious leaders noted the timing of the government’s decision ahead of an important holiday.
“We all expected to spend the days of Eid in happiness, but unfortunately, you saw that a few days before the blessed Eid al-Adha, the Iraqi government, as is their constant practice, repeated and once again committed a great injustice against all citizens of Kurdistan in general and salary earners and employees in particular,” Abdullah Waisi, president of the Islamic association, said during his address in Soran on Friday.
He said the federal government has for years targeted the Kurdish people with punitive measures.
The federal finance ministry’s decision has been widely condemned by KRG officials.
"We are very concerned that by an unconstitutional and illegal decision, the federal government cut the salaries of salary earners during Eid. I don't believe any government in the world would make such a cut on such an occasion," Minister of Endowment and Religious Affairs Pshtiwan Sadiq told reporters on Friday.
"We have strong confidence in our political leadership that practical steps will be taken after Eid and this problem will be resolved," Sadiq added.
On Wednesday, the KRG’s Council of Ministers accused Baghdad of imposing a “siege” on the Region.
“The decision to halt the Kurdistan Region’s salaries is unconstitutional and illegal, and constitutes collective punishment of all the Kurdistan Region’s citizens,” the KRG said in a statement.
Iraq’s Oil Ministry, in a response on Thursday, said it was holding the KRG responsible for “oil smuggling operations” from the Kurdistan Region and demanded the immediate handover of regional oil production.
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 performing the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
