Shafaq News – Erbil
The Kurdistan Region’s Planning Ministry has urged President Nechirvan Barzani to include census provisions in negotiations to form Iraq’s next federal government, a senior Kurdish official confirmed on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference in Erbil, Deputy Planning Minister Sirwan Mohammed noted that the Region conducted its first population census in over 37 years last year, expressing concern that, despite Baghdad’s assurances of neutrality, political disputes persist.
He recalled past Kurdish demands for independent census mechanisms in disputed territories, the creation of a statistics office for Kurdistan equivalent to Baghdad’s, and linking the results of the 1958 and 2024 censuses, adding, “The federal government responded only on the final day of data collection.”
Mohammed said Prime Minister Masrour Barzani later discussed the issue with Iraqi caretaker PM Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, leading to formal Cabinet approvals that have yet to be enforced.
“Preliminary figures,” he added, “show Iraq’s population at 46,118,793, including 6,519,129 in the Kurdistan Region, though some subdistricts were excluded from the count.”
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