Marchers torch public buildings in Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah

By Idris Okuducu

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq (AA) - Several public facilities, including the offices of certain opposition groups, including the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), were torched by angry demonstrators on Tuesday in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region.

Aydin Maruf, an ITF lawmaker for Erbil, told Anadolu Agency that demonstrators had set fire to the ITF’s office in the city’s Kifri district.

Since Monday, Sulaymaniyah has been the scene of large demonstrations by civil servants to protest public-sector salary delays and perceived government corruption.

According to Maruf, protesters also torched the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Sulaymaniyah, as well as the Koy Sanjaq prefecture building near Erbil (the municipal capital of the Kurdish Regional Government).

Local authorities have reportedly stepped up security throughout the city with a view to preventing further escalations.

On Monday, thousands of local civil servants staged demonstrations in Sulaymaniyah to demand delayed salaries and decry local government corruption.

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