On Tuesday, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) demanded that the Kurdistan Region’s 14.14% share of Iraq’s population be maintained in the draft 2027 budget law, and accused Baghdad of reducing the Kurdistan Region’s population figures in Iraq’s census results.

“After Iraq’s general population census was conducted on November 20, 2024, the federal government has unilaterally dealt with the results of the process, contrary to prior agreements and decisions by the Council of Ministers,” the KRG said.

This comes amid preparations by Baghdad to draft the 2027 federal budget.

“The most prominent violation is the reduction of the Kurdistan Region’s share of the population from 14.14% to 12.68%, which poses a direct threat to the Region’s share of the federal budget for 2027.

“Despite the existence of several decisions calling for the census process to be jointly managed, the Iraqi government has not adhered to the agreed points,” the KRG asserted.

The KRG said that the census ignored previous agreements, as the federal government reportedly announced the results without completing the process of comparing them with the 1957 census and sidelined joint teams in the Kurdish areas.

Moreover, the KRG said the Kurdistan Region’s population share was unlawfully reduced by excluding internally displaced people and refugees. “While the KRG bears responsibility for hosting them and covering the costs of more than 500,000 people in the disputed territories,” the KRG noted, “Baghdad … has counted them to its own advantage.”

The KRG also accused Baghdad of failing to spend the 13.8 billion Iraqi dinars allocated for census-related expenses in the Kurdistan Region, while providing illogical justifications for not providing the raw data and disregarding the Kurdistan Region’s official efforts.

The KRG warned “against a repetition of previous financial discrimination and rejects having its citizens’ rights to employment, food rations and public services taken away on the basis of manipulated statistics.”