Baghdad Using ‘Illegal Means’ to Undermine Kurdistan, KDP Official Says
“Baghdad is actively working to eliminate the constitutional structure of the Kurdistan Region. What it cannot accomplish through strength, it now pursues through illegal and unconstitutional methods.”
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — Ashwaq Jaf, a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party's (KDP) Central Committee, accused the Iraqi federal government on Tuesday of deliberately working to dismantle the Kurdistan Region's constitutional framework under the guise of legal mechanisms.
Speaking to Kurdistan24 in a televised interview, Jaf asserted that “Baghdad is actively working to eliminate the constitutional structure of the Kurdistan Region. What it cannot accomplish through strength, it now pursues through illegal and unconstitutional methods.”
Jaf emphasized that the motives behind Baghdad’s actions are neither technical nor administrative, but political in nature. She sharply criticized the central government's ongoing withholding of salaries for public servants in the Kurdistan Region, describing the policy as “a new form of Anfal” — a reference to the genocidal campaign by Saddam Hussein’s regime against the Kurds in the late 1980s.
She further noted that while the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has met all its obligations, Baghdad continues to stall and evade its own responsibilities. Jaf urged all Kurdish political parties to unite in rejecting what she described as “the plundering of the rightful financial entitlements of Kurdistan Region employees.”
Her remarks come amid escalating tensions between Erbil and Baghdad over the Region’s share of the federal budget and long-standing disputes concerning oil exports, governance, and financial entitlements. Kurdish leaders have repeatedly accused Baghdad of politicizing budget disbursements and using economic pressure as a tool to erode the Kurdistan Region’s autonomy.
