Kurdistan graduates with top honors demand appointment after nine-year wait

SULAYMANIYAH, Kurdistan Region of Iraq — Graduates who finished in the top three of their classes at universities and institutes across the Kurdistan Region are calling on authorities to resolve their long-pending appointment files, nine years after completing their studies. Speaking at a press conference in Sulaymaniyah, graduate representative Zana Muhammad said they had organized roughly 47 civilian demonstrations and protests since graduating and accused the regional government of delaying their files every year under different pretexts. Muhammad said talks with relevant institutions were continuing and noted that the graduates had met with the head of the Kurdistan Region's Civil Service Council, the regional budget director and Kurdish members of the Iraqi parliament. According to Muhammad, the officials they spoke with acknowledged that direct appointment was the graduates' right. The graduates based their demand on Article 25 of the Kurdistan Region's Law No. 10 of 2008 and Article 67 of the Iraqi parliament's 2017 legislation, seeking the same direct appointment given to top-three graduates in other parts of Iraq. In a closing statement, they urged Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani to press the issue, stressing that the case now also intersects with regional financial matters and the Iraqi parliament.