‘Under new government, Kurds won’t need to go to Baghdad for salaries’: Iraqi politician

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - Kurds will no longer need to go to Baghdad for their public employees' salaries under the incoming national majority government in Baghdad, the Iraqi Sunni politician and leader of the Al-Arabiya Coalition Misha'an al-Jibouri told Kurdistan 24 on Friday.

Al-Jibouri, whose party is part of the new parliamentary bloc that includes the Sadrists, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Azm Alliance, and Progress Party, told Kurdistan 24 that the bloc will go ahead with forming the national majority government.

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"The new bloc has about 225 seats in the parliament and can successfully elect a prime minister and approve his cabinet's program," al-Jibouri said. "We will elect the candidate that Muqtada al-Sadr will nominate for the position of prime minister. We will go ahead with electing the candidate that President Barzani nominates for Iraq's presidency."

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"The KDP guaranteed Iraq's president position for itself with its victory in the election," he added. "The procedure through which the presidency of the parliament was elected was constitutional."

"This is how we will fix the political process."

Al-Jibouri reaffirmed that the new alliance has more than 200 parliament members.

"The other blocs [the Shiite Coordination Framework] uses pressure to gain some political benefits," he said. "I believe the era of militias is over."

"The Kurdish people will see the difference between this government and the previous governments," he added. "The Kurds will not have any problems with the budget anymore."

He also pointed out that the Shiite Coordination Framework is unable to target the offices of the Sadrists in Baghdad. That's why they target the offices of the Sunnis political parties and the KDP in the Iraqi capital and Erbil with drones and rockets.

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Al-Jibouri revealed that the armed groups that targeted Erbil with rockets and drones are the same groups that committed attacks in the west of Iraq and threatened and kidnapped people there.

“We went to this alliance to get rid of these groups’ influence,” al-Jibouri stated. “The next stage is taking control of the weapons.”

Al-Jibouri underlined that when all Iraqi components support the government the militias will not be able to control it.

“We hope that the new government won’t have to fight the militias,” he said.

“Following the October elections, we told Barzani that this time we have to be real partners in the government and that we should avoid being tricked by only being given some government positions,” he added.

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