Teachers, hospital workers and other public sector employees have taken to the streets and gone on strike for a week, demanding their salaries from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is three months in arrears. Thursday’s protest focused on a five-star hotel in the center of Sulaimaniyah, where political parties were meeting to resolve a deadlock over the presidency that has compounded the economic crisis. The demonstrations are the most sustained unrest in the autonomous region of Kurdistan since the start of an economic crisis compounded by the conflict with ISIS and a drop in oil prices that has pushed the region to the verge of bankruptcy.