Protest turns violent on Sulaimani-Arbat road over unpaid salaries
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Public sector workers block oil trucks in protest over unpaid salaries
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Clashes broke out between truck drivers and protesters along the Sulaimani-Arbat road on Monday, after demonstrators blocked oil tankers in a bid to pressure Erbil and Baghdad to address the ongoing crisis of unpaid civil servant salaries.
Since Sunday, a group of teachers and public sector employees had been blocking the passage of oil trucks through the key route but allowed other vehicles through. However, tensions escalated on Monday when demonstrators and truck drivers clashed, leading to multiple injuries and prompting Kurdish security forces to step in.
One of the protesting civil servants, Adil Hassan, told Rudaw on Tuesday that he 'and several journalists were arrested' and 'later released on bail,' with some being 'released at 4:00 am' local time.
The previous day, a Sulaimani-based media watchdog, the Metro Center for Journalists Rights and Advocacy, censured 'the attack on teachers' in Arbat as well as 'the assault on journalists and the destruction of their equipment.' The center criticized these actions as revealing 'the authorities' real policy toward peaceful civil struggle.'
For their part, the Kurdistan Region's security forces (Asayish) issued a statement on Tuesday, confirming that they had taken 'several legal measures to control the undesirable situation' and deployed their forces 'to ease tensions between the civil servants and truck drivers.' Although arrests had been made the previous day, the Asayish noted that all the detainees had been released and injured civilians had been treated and released from hospitals.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has struggled with delays in paying civil servant salaries for nearly a decade, due to financial difficulties worsened by the suspension of its oil exports in March 2023. The suspension followed a court ruling in a dispute between Iraq and Turkey over the Kurdistan Region's independent oil sales.
The KRG also depends on its share of the federal budget to pay salaries, but the transfer of funds from Baghdad has been inconsistent, with both sides blaming each other for the delays.
Iraq's oil minister confirmed on Monday that the Iraq-Turkey pipeline is ready to resume oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through Turkey's Ceyhan port. Hayyan Abdul Ghani hoped exports will restart within two days after resolving technical issues.
Observers in the Kurdistan Region are hopeful that the resumption of oil exports will help alleviate the financial difficulties and resolve the ongoing crisis of unpaid civil servant salaries.
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