UPDATE - Civil servants in Sulaymaniyah protest salary delays

UPDATES WITH VICE PRESIDENT'S REMARKS AND MORE DETAILS ABOUT PROTESTS

By Idris Okuducu and Amir al-Saadi

BAGHDAD, SULAYMANIYAH (AA) - Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi warned on Monday of the worsening situation in the northern region of the country against a backdrop of demonstrations broke out this morning in the city of Sulaymaniyah.

"The Kurdish citizen has been left to bear the results and consequences of the continuation of the crisis between the federal government and the administration of the North [in reference to Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)], after he was wishing urgent solutions to the subject of salary arrears, which negatively affected his living situation," Allawi said in a statement Monday.

He called for urgent action to resolve the dispute between the federal government and the KRG in the light of the initiative presented by Iraqi President Fuad Masum.

Thousands of civil servants earlier on Monday staged demonstrations in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region to protest delayed salary payments and perceived local government corruption.

Protesters converged on the city center, shouting slogans against both the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the central government in Baghdad, demanding that the former pay their overdue salaries.

“We’re asking the [Kurdish regional] government to improve the situation faced by civil servants and put an end to the public salary crisis,” protester Sadik Omar told Anadolu Agency.

“We have reached the end of our tether,” he said.

Monday’s demonstrations were not confined to the city center.

Suburban districts of Sulaymaniyah -- including Halabja, Chamchamal and Said Sadik -- also witnessed protests by angry civil servants on Monday.

Local media reported that the district governorship in the town of Piramagroon of Sulaymaniyah was set on fire during the ongoing demonstrations.

There were no reports on loss of life, but due to the fire, the building became unusable.

In the Chamchamal district, two demonstrators were wounded by security forces after they tried to enter the power plant, local news reported.

In a written statement on Monday, the KRG New Generation Movement called on protesters to continue the demonstrations until the "current administration of Erbil is brought down".

Monday’s protests also witnessed the storming of and the setting fire to the Sulaymaniyah headquarters of the four Kurdish parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Movement for Change and the Kurdistan Islamic Union.

Sulaymaniyah is a bastion of the Kurdish region’s leading opposition parties, particularly the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Gorran Movement (Movement for Change).