{
  "id": "iraq",
  "title": "Iraq",
  "lang": "en",
  "source_lang": "en",
  "summary": "Iraq is a federal parliamentary republic in Western Asia, straddling the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, whose history spans ancient Mesopotamia and whose economy depends heavily on oil.",
  "category": "geography",
  "subcategory": "",
  "type": "place",
  "aliases": [
    "Republic of Iraq"
  ],
  "generated_at": "2026-10-10",
  "model": "pro/gpt-6.1-sol",
  "url": "https://aiwiki.page/en/iraq/",
  "translations": {
    "zh-Hans": {
      "url": "https://aiwiki.page/zh/iraq/",
      "json": "https://aiwiki.page/zh/iraq.json"
    }
  },
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "",
      "text": "Iraq is a country in Western Asia that borders Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, with a short coastline on the Persian Gulf. Its territory includes much of the lower river basin of the Tigris and Euphrates, the core of Mesopotamia, where some of the earliest cities and cuneiform writing appeared. Baghdad is the capital. The country is a federal parliamentary republic under its 2005 constitution, with a semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in the north, and it has about 46 million people. Its government is formally organized into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, though its politics have been shaped by a long series of imperial, colonial, and authoritarian regimes.\n\nIraq matters for several reasons. It holds some of the world's largest proven oil reserves, and oil income supplies most of the state budget, so global energy markets and regional conflicts affect its finances directly. Its rivers have sustained agriculture for millennia, but they are now at historically low levels because of drought, climate change, and upstream dam construction, which has made water one of its most urgent problems. It also lies at the center of Middle Eastern geopolitics, with close and sometimes contested relations with Iran, Turkey, the United States, and the Gulf states, and it has experienced a long period of war and insurgency since 1980.\n\nThe entry moves from the physical setting, including the rivers, climate, and water crisis, to the historical record from ancient Mesopotamia through the Islamic caliphates, Ottoman rule, the British mandate, and the modern state. It then covers the constitutional system, the Kurdistan Region, population and society, the oil-based economy, infrastructure and environment, health and education, cultural heritage, and finally foreign relations and security."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Location, borders, and territorial extent",
      "text": "Iraq occupies the central part of Mesopotamia in southwestern Asia, between the Iranian plateau to the east, the Anatolian highlands to the north, and the deserts extending westward into Syria and southward into the Arabian Peninsula. Its territory connects the northern Persian Gulf with the upper Tigris–Euphrates valley and the approaches to Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean. This arrangement gives the river valleys and adjoining plains importance as corridors for trade and military movement, while the northeastern mountains constrain cross-border routes to valleys and passes. The principal territorial contrast is between the Mesopotamian lowlands in the centre and southeast and the extensive desert country west and southwest of the Euphrates; northern uplands and northeastern mountains complete the geographical framework. (infcis.iaea.org)\n\nIraq shares land borders with six countries: Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the northwest, Jordan to the west, Saudi Arabia to the southwest and south, and Kuwait to the southeast. The 2023 World Factbook gives a total land-boundary length of 3,809 kilometres, including 1,599 kilometres with Iran, 811 with Saudi Arabia, 599 with Syria, 367 with Turkey, 254 with Kuwait, and 179 with Jordan. The same source records a total area of 438,317 square kilometres, comprising 437,367 square kilometres of land and 950 square kilometres of water. These figures describe the national territory, not the boundaries of the autonomous region or the extent of competing internal administrative claims. (theodora.com)\n\nThe coastline is only about 58 kilometres long, at the northern end of the Persian Gulf between Iran and Kuwait. The Shatt al-Arab, formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates at al-Qurnah, provides a waterway from the Basra area to the Gulf. Approximately 200 kilometres long, it links the inland river system to maritime routes; sediment accumulation has historically required dredging to maintain navigation. Iraq’s large inland territory therefore has a geographically concentrated outlet to the sea, giving the southern coastal approaches an importance disproportionate to their length. (infcis.iaea.org)\n\nThe longstanding division into 18 governorates changed when parliament approved legislation establishing Halabja as Iraq’s nineteenth governorate on April 14, 2025. Halabja had previously been administered within Sulaymaniyah and had already received regional governorate status in 2014. The Kurdistan Region consequently comprises four governorates: Erbil, Duhok, Sulaymaniyah, and Halabja. It is not an additional governorate alongside these units, but a constitutionally recognized region within Iraq’s federal structure. Article 117 of the 2005 constitution recognizes the Kurdistan Region and its existing authorities; the constitution separately provides for governorates not incorporated into a region. (thenationalnews.com)\n\nThe boundary between the Kurdistan Region and the rest of Iraq remains disputed in several areas, particularly Kirkuk and districts across Nineveh, Salah al-Din, and Diyala. These are disputes over internal jurisdiction rather than international sovereignty. Article 140 prescribed normalization, a census, and a referendum in Kirkuk and other disputed territories, with a deadline of December 31, 2007. In April 2009, United Nations representative Staffan de Mistura presented assessments covering districts including Sinjar, Makhmour, Kirkuk, Tuz, and Khanaqin; the reports did not prescribe their future administrative affiliation. Federal forces re-established control over Kirkuk and other disputed areas in October 2017, but changes in security control did not themselves constitute an agreed settlement of the internal boundary. (investpromo.gov.iq)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Physical landforms and climate",
      "text": "The northeastern highlands comprise the Iraqi portion of the Zagros Mountains and adjoining ranges along the Iranian and Turkish borders. Steep slopes, narrow valleys, and high ridges give way southwestward to folded foothills and broader agricultural valleys. Many ridges exceed 3,000 metres; the central belt of border folds reaches approximately 2,000 metres. This relief developed through the collision of the Arabian and Eurasian plates, which compressed and folded predominantly sedimentary rocks. Limestone formations also contain important groundwater stores. Higher precipitation and seasonal snow make the northern and northeastern highlands the principal source of locally generated surface runoff, whereas streams draining the drier foothill plains often cease flowing by late spring. (fao.org)\n\nThe alluvial plain of lower Mesopotamia extends southeastward from around Balad on the Tigris and Ramadi on the Euphrates, encompassing the central and southern river lowlands and marshes. Successive river deposits have produced calcareous soils, with finer, clay-rich material in flood basins and coarser sediments on natural levees. An FAO soil survey reported calcium carbonate contents of 15–35 percent in the upper metre of the plain’s soils. These soils support intensive cultivation, but their agricultural usefulness depends on irrigation because rainfall is insufficient. Fine-textured basin soils drain less readily than levee soils; poor drainage and salt accumulation consequently constrain farming even where river water is available. (cosit.gov.iq)\n\nNorthwest of the lower plain, Al-Jazira occupies the upland country between the Tigris and Euphrates. Its rolling steppe differs from the river-built lowlands: gypsum is prominent in its soil parent materials, and land use combines cereal cultivation where winter rainfall permits with seasonal grazing. Farther west and southwest, the Iraqi portion of the Syrian Desert is predominantly a stony, limestone-based plateau rather than a continuous expanse of dunes. Iraqi statistical descriptions place the broader western desert plateau, including Al-Jazira, between approximately 100 and 1,000 metres above sea level. Sparse rainfall limits cultivation largely to irrigated sites, while winter vegetation supplies temporary pasture. (iraqiembassy.us)\n\nMost of Iraq has a continental, arid or semi-arid climate, with extremely hot, dry summers and cooler winters. Rainfall is normally absent or negligible from June through September. In the lowlands, July and August shade temperatures commonly exceed 43 °C, and summer extremes can exceed 50 °C; the Iraqi embassy’s geographical description records temperatures reaching 51 °C in Baghdad. The northeast has shorter, relatively cooler summers and longer, colder winters, with snow at higher elevations. FAO’s 2008 AQUASTAT survey describes annual precipitation ranging from less than 100 millimetres across much of the south to approximately 1,200 millimetres in the wettest northeastern areas. (iraqiembassy.us)\n\nPrecipitation is concentrated in the cool season, extending roughly from October to May in the northern highlands. Snow temporarily stores part of this precipitation, and spring melting increases runoff into the river system. Rainfed agriculture follows the rainfall gradient: northern areas receiving more than about 400 millimetres annually support wheat, barley, and chickpeas, whereas the 200–400-millimetre steppe belt favours barley and pasture, with more limited wheat cultivation. Annual totals vary substantially. At Sulaymaniyah, average precipitation for 1941–1999 was 674 millimetres, but only 338 millimetres fell in 1999. On the Erbil plain, the 1941–1970 average was 425 millimetres, with recorded annual totals ranging from approximately 200 to 700 millimetres. Such variability makes the rainfed farming zone a fluctuating climatic belt rather than a fixed boundary. (fews.net)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Rivers, hydrology, and the Tigris–Euphrates basin",
      "text": "The Tigris and Euphrates both have their principal headwaters in eastern Turkey; Iran contributes through tributaries draining the Zagros Mountains rather than through either river’s main source. The Euphrates, approximately 2,800 km long, is formed by the Karasu and Murat rivers and crosses Syria before entering western Iraq near al-Qa’im. It then runs southeast through the Anbar corridor and the southern alluvial plain. The Tigris, approximately 1,800 km long, follows a more easterly course, briefly forming part of the Turkish–Syrian boundary before entering Iraq and passing through Mosul, Baghdad, and Kut. Their channels converge at al-Qurnah to form the Shatt al-Arab, which continues for about 190–200 km past Basra to the Persian Gulf. The Iranian Karun supplies additional freshwater to this lower waterway. (waterinventory.org)\n\nBefore extensive regulation, the rivers’ seasonal hydrographs reflected winter precipitation and spring snowmelt in their mountain catchments. The Tigris generally reached its maximum discharge in April, about a month before the Euphrates, and its minimum in September. One Iraqi measurement-based estimate attributed more than half of the Tigris’s annual flow to March–May. Historical records illustrate the contrast between upstream and downstream volumes: during 1931–1973, mean annual Tigris flow was approximately 21 billion cubic metres at Mosul and 32 billion cubic metres at Kut. Tributary inputs between these stations would theoretically have produced a larger downstream total, but diversions, abstractions, and measurement uncertainties complicated that balance. These are historical station averages, not estimates of present-day supply. (waterinventory.org)\n\nRiver sedimentation and channel movement shaped the agricultural landscape of southern Mesopotamia. Sediment accumulated along riverbanks to form natural levees elevated above adjoining fields, allowing irrigation water to move downhill by gravity. Farmers could adapt breaches in these levees—known as crevasse splays—by extending their channels and controlling the released water with small barriers. Over time, such interventions developed into branching canal networks linking settlements and cultivated land. Conversely, shifts in river courses could deprive established farming districts of their water supply: a displacement of the Euphrates left the Eridu region dry after the early first millennium BCE. Early water management therefore involved both exploiting natural channels and maintaining artificial diversions, rather than simply allowing seasonal floods to inundate fields. (cambridge.org)\n\nThe principal tributaries joining the Tigris within Iraq enter from its eastern, or left, bank. The Greater Zab originates in Turkey, while the Lesser Zab and Diyala have headwaters in Iran; the Adhaim drains a catchment entirely within Iraq. FAO’s published historical estimates give annual contributions at their respective Tigris confluences of approximately 13.18 billion cubic metres for the Greater Zab, 7.17 billion for the Lesser Zab, 5.74 billion for the Diyala, and 0.79 billion for the Adhaim. The Adhaim is intermittent and subject to flash floods, unlike the larger mountain-fed rivers. Together, these tributaries substantially augment the Tigris after it enters Iraq. Their confluences being inside Iraqi territory does not, however, mean that all their water originates there. (fao.org)\n\nThe Euphrates receives no comparable large tributary contribution within Iraq, making its supply especially dependent on water arriving through Turkey and Syria. Older FAO assessments estimated that more than 90% of Euphrates water came from outside Iraq, compared with approximately half of Tigris water; these figures describe a historical hydrological balance rather than fixed annual proportions. The underlying geographical asymmetry is persistent: mountain catchments generate much of the runoff, whereas the hot, relatively dry downstream plains contribute little and lose water through evapotranspiration. Within Iraq, diversions into the Tharthar depression also connect the rivers operationally, allowing stored Tigris water to be returned to either river system. Consequently, downstream discharge reflects not only cross-border inflows but also tributary runoff, storage, diversions, and losses within the country. (fao.org)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Water crisis and water governance",
      "text": "Iraq’s water shortage intensified during the prolonged drought of the early 2020s. On 20 November 2025, UNICEF reported that national water reserves had fallen to approximately 4 billion cubic metres, their lowest level in 80 years; some communities received piped water for only a few hours a day or on particular days of the week. The shortage also reduced water available to southern marshes: the Ishan Hallab area dried completely between 2021 and 2025, according to marshland specialist Jassim al-Assadi. Conditions improved after heavy winter rainfall in 2025–2026. By May 2026, the Ministry of Water Resources reported an increase of approximately 6 billion cubic metres in strategic reserves, enabling additional releases into the marshes. This recovery illustrates how reservoir operations and seasonal rainfall jointly determine supplies to downstream settlements and wetlands. (unicef.org)\n\nUpstream regulation and abstraction compound climatic shortages. Turkish dams, including Ilısu on the Tigris, and Iranian dam and diversion projects affecting the Little Zab and Sirwan–Diyala system have become recurring subjects of Iraqi diplomatic complaints. Baghdad emphasizes reduced inflows, while Ankara emphasizes inefficient Iraqi distribution and irrigation infrastructure. Existing allocation arrangements cover only parts of the river system: the 1990 Iraq–Syria agreement assigns Iraq 58% and Syria 42% of the Euphrates flow received by Syria from Turkey. This percentage does not constitute a fixed volume delivered to Iraq, because the amount depends on upstream releases. Infrastructure cooperation and allocation negotiations therefore address related but distinct problems: conserving water already available inside Iraq and securing predictable cross-border inflows. (carnegieendowment.org)\n\nWater quality further constrains usable supply, particularly around Basra. Reduced freshwater discharge allows saltwater intrusion from the Persian Gulf into the Shatt al-Arab, while sewage, agricultural runoff and industrial waste contaminate the river and connected canals. Conventional treatment plants cannot remove dissolved salts, and inadequate chlorination or malfunctioning equipment can leave additional contaminants untreated. Human Rights Watch’s investigation of the 2018 Basra crisis documented at least 118,000 hospital admissions involving symptoms associated with poor water quality, without establishing a single cause for all cases. Households consequently relied on purchased bottled water or water treated by private reverse-osmosis operators, transferring part of the cost of safe supply from public utilities to consumers. (hrw.org)\n\nResponses have combined treatment-plant rehabilitation with desalination. UNICEF-supported interventions in Basra included replacement pumps, repaired filtration equipment, chlorination systems and water-quality testing. In February 2022, UNICEF and the European Union, working with Eni and the governorate, launched a programme intended to improve water quality for 850,000 residents. On 24 July 2025, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani launched construction of a seawater desalination project near the Grand Faw Port, with a planned capacity of 1 million cubic metres per day. That figure describes its intended capacity, rather than water already being supplied at the launch. (unicef.org)\n\nNational planning also addresses distribution and demand. On 23 March 2025, Ammar Adel, head of the National Water Team and director of the General Directorate of Water, announced updates to water-project master plans, automated management systems for distribution, and improved data collection. The World Bank estimated in its 2022 country climate and development assessment that, without policy action, the annual supply–demand gap could reach approximately 10.9 billion cubic metres by 2035. Long-term management discussions accordingly extend beyond new storage and treatment facilities to irrigation modernization, maintenance and the coordination of water-resource management with municipal services. (iraq.un.org)\n\nOn 2 November 2025, Iraq and Turkey signed an implementation mechanism for the water-cooperation framework originally concluded on 22 April 2024. Under the mechanism, Iraqi authorities would select infrastructure projects and invite Turkish companies to undertake them, with financing derived from Iraqi oil-sale revenues. The initial package included three water-harvesting dam projects and three land-reclamation initiatives. Frequently described as an “oil-for-water” arrangement, it finances construction rather than directly exchanging oil for a specified continuing river flow. Analysis by the Arab Gulf States Institute distinguished these infrastructure commitments from unresolved allocation questions and identified a financing vulnerability: project expenditure depends on oil receipts, which vary with prices, export volumes and interruptions. (ina.iq)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Ancient Mesopotamia: early cities, writing, and law",
      "text": "Southern Mesopotamia developed some of the earliest urban societies during the fourth millennium BCE. By about 3200 BCE, Uruk, at modern Warka, was a major city with monumental mud-brick buildings, specialized crafts, and institutions that recorded goods and workers’ rations. Irrigation canals supplied farmland in the arid southern plain, while waterways supported transport and exchange. Agricultural production sustained populations engaged in administration, craft manufacture, and religious service rather than farming alone. During the Early Dynastic period, approximately 2900–2350 BCE, Uruk, Ur, Lagash, and other Sumerian cities formed competing city-states, each comprising an urban center and its surrounding territory. Ur’s royal cemetery, with jewelry, musical instruments, and elaborate burials, documents the wealth and social distinctions of this urban world. (metmuseum.org)\n\nThe earliest surviving tablets from Uruk, dating to the late fourth millennium BCE, principally concern accounting: quantities of grain, animals, goods, and labor. Their numerical and pictographic notation developed into cuneiform, whose characteristic wedges were impressed into moist clay with a stylus. A decisive development was the use of signs for sounds as well as words, allowing scribes to represent speech rather than merely identify commodities. By the middle of the third millennium BCE, writing served economic, political, religious, literary, and scholarly purposes. Cuneiform was a writing system, not a single language; it was used for both Sumerian and Akkadian. Old Babylonian exercise tablets show how scribes learned: a teacher supplied model signs or words, and pupils copied them repeatedly. One surviving tablet, dated approximately to the twentieth–sixteenth centuries BCE, repeats the divine name Urash six times. (metmuseum.org)\n\nPolitical authority expanded beyond individual cities under Sargon of Akkad around the twenty-fourth century BCE. The Akkadian dynasty, conventionally dated approximately 2334–2154 BCE, extended its power across Mesopotamia and maintained military and commercial connections with neighboring regions. Subsequent kingdoms combined territorial rule with the administrative traditions of the cities. Babylon became a major political center under Hammurabi, who reigned in 1792–1750 BCE according to the conventional middle chronology and united a large state through alliances and conquest. Assyria, rooted in northern Mesopotamia, later dominated much of the region. Its collapse included the sack of Nineveh in 612 BCE; the succeeding Neo-Babylonian state reached its height under Nebuchadnezzar II, who rebuilt Babylon’s walls, palaces, temples, and ceremonial approaches. (resources.metmuseum.org)\n\nHammurabi’s surviving law monument, engraved around 1750 BCE, is a basalt stela approximately 2.25 meters high. Its 282 conventionally numbered provisions address property, trade, labor, marriage, and other disputes through conditional formulations specifying an offense or circumstance and its consequence. The collection is not a comprehensive legal code in the modern sense: it combines legal judgments with a royal presentation of justice. Above the inscription, Hammurabi appears before Shamash, the sun god and patron of justice, linking judicial authority with divine sanction. Other inscriptions document different legal and administrative practices: Kassite-period kudurru monuments record land grants and invoke divine symbols to protect their terms, while royal building inscriptions commemorate construction and restoration. (louvre.fr)\n\nReligion was embedded in civic institutions. Communities worshipped patron deities in principal temples, which also had substantial social and economic roles and received gifts of land and other resources. Priests attended cult statues through offerings, dressing, and other daily services understood as care for the gods. Inanna, called Ishtar in Akkadian, was a major goddess; Babylon’s patron Marduk acquired greater prominence as the city’s political power increased. Babylon’s spring New Year ceremonies included the recitation of its creation epic and a procession of divine statues, connecting mythology, kingship, and the ceremonial organization of the city. (britishmuseum.org)\n\nThe Epic of Gilgamesh preserves another strand of this culture. Separate Sumerian stories were incorporated into an Akkadian epic in the early second millennium BCE and subsequently reworked. Its central narrative follows Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, his friendship with Enkidu, Enkidu’s death, and the king’s unsuccessful search for immortality. A flood narrative forms part of the surviving tradition. Tablets from Nineveh preserve portions of the work, while fragments found in Anatolia, Syria, and the southern Levant demonstrate its circulation beyond Mesopotamia. (britishmuseum.org)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Persian, Hellenistic, and Islamic-era empires",
      "text": "Cyrus II incorporated Babylonia into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BCE, ending the Neo-Babylonian monarchy. The Cyrus Cylinder, written in Babylonian cuneiform, presented the conquest as the restoration of legitimate kingship and recorded the return of divine images to their sanctuaries. Babylon remained an important imperial center rather than being immediately displaced. Alexander the Great took the city after defeating Darius III at Gaugamela in 331 BCE and died there in 323 BCE. Following the struggles among his successors, Mesopotamia became part of the Seleucid kingdom. Seleucus I founded Seleucia on the Tigris around 300 BCE, establishing a new administrative and commercial center with Greek civic institutions alongside the region’s older settlements and traditions. (britishmuseum.org)\n\nThe Parthian king Mithridates I conquered Babylonia in 141 BCE. Seleucia retained considerable autonomy and minted silver and bronze coins, while Ctesiphon, across the Tigris, developed from a royal winter residence into an imperial capital. Mesopotamia’s agricultural wealth and position between eastern markets and the Mediterranean made it central to Parthian finances and commerce, although its northern and western districts were repeatedly contested with the Roman Empire. After Ardashir I defeated the last Parthian king in 224 CE, the Sasanian Empire inherited this metropolitan region. Ctesiphon became its principal capital, and the irrigated lowlands of southern Iraq formed a major source of revenue and provisions. Their canals, estates, towns, and administrative structures also provided the material foundation for subsequent Islamic rule. (treccani.it)\n\nArab Muslim armies conquered Sasanian Iraq during the 630s. Basra, founded around 635, and Kufa, founded around 638, began as garrison settlements: troops were organized by tribal affiliation, registered for stipends, and supported through revenues collected from conquered territory. These cities became bases for further campaigns into Iran, and their governors administered extensive eastern dependencies. They also developed into centers of Arabic grammar, religious learning, and political mobilization; Caliph Ali made Kufa his capital during his reign of 656–661. After the Abbasid revolution of 750, Iraq became the seat of the new dynasty. In 762, al-Mansur founded Baghdad, officially named Madinat al-Salam, as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Its original circular enclosure placed the caliphal palace and congregational mosque at the center, physically expressing the relationship between government and religious authority. (iranicaonline.org)\n\nBaghdad’s intellectual prominence rested on court patronage, wealthy private sponsors, and multilingual scholarly networks. During the eighth and ninth centuries, Christian translators—including al-Bitriq and Hunayn ibn Ishaq—helped transmit Greek philosophical and medical works into Arabic, frequently through Syriac. Their work involved comparison, revision, and the development of technical terminology, not simply copying inherited texts. Under al-Mamun, who ruled in 813–833, al-Khwarizmi produced works on astronomy and algebra; his algebraic treatise explained methods for solving linear and quadratic problems and applied calculation to inheritance, commerce, and land measurement. Baghdad’s scholarly economy was connected to wider exchange: overland routes linked Iraq with Iran and Central Asia, while Basra’s maritime connections brought Indian spices, Southeast Asian timber, and Chinese ceramics and silk into Iraqi markets, alongside commercial links westward toward the Mediterranean. (journals.uco.es)\n\nBaghdad’s political authority weakened before the Mongol conquest. Buyid rulers established military control in the tenth century, followed by the Seljuks in the eleventh, although Abbasid caliphs remained in office. In February 1258, Hülegü’s forces captured and sacked the city and executed Caliph al-Mustasim, ending the Baghdad-based Abbasid caliphate. Iraq entered the Ilkhanate, whose principal political centers lay in Iran. The conquest caused extensive destruction, but Baghdad continued to function as a provincial administrative and commercial city rather than disappearing altogether. After the Ilkhan Abu Said died in 1335, competing successor rulers fought for control; the Jalayirids established themselves in Baghdad by about 1340, followed later by the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu confederations. The Mamluk governors who exercised considerable autonomy in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Iraq belonged to a much later Ottoman provincial setting, not to the immediate succession after 1258. (iranicaonline.org)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Ottoman rule and British intervention",
      "text": "Sultan Suleiman I captured Baghdad from the Safavids in 1534, extending the Ottoman Empire into central Mesopotamia; Basra came under firmer Ottoman control in 1546. The Safavids recovered Baghdad in 1623, but Sultan Murad IV retook it in 1638, establishing Ottoman possession until the British conquest. Imperial authority nevertheless varied considerably outside the principal towns. Governors negotiated with tribal confederations, Kurdish rulers, and urban elites, while locally based military households sometimes exercised substantial autonomy. The territories later incorporated into Iraq developed around the provincial centres of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, rather than forming a single continuously unified administrative unit. (iranicaonline.org)\n\nIstanbul reasserted direct control over Baghdad in 1831, ending the rule of its Mamluk governors. Midhat Pasha, governor from 1869 to 1872, strengthened provincial administration through reforms in schooling, military organization, law, and land registration. Registering agricultural land was intended to clarify ownership and taxation, but often enabled tribal sheikhs to acquire legal title to land previously held collectively. These changes accompanied closer commercial integration: river steamships appeared in 1836, telegraph communications in 1861, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 improved access to European markets. Mosul’s trade routes connected it with Anatolia and Aleppo, while goods also travelled downstream by raft to Baghdad. (countrystudies.us)\n\nDuring the First World War, Britain launched the Mesopotamian campaign with forces drawn largely from British India, initially to protect Gulf communications and oil supplies. British and Indian troops occupied Basra in November 1914, then advanced inland along the rivers. The first attempt to reach Baghdad ended with Major-General Charles Townshend’s retreat to Kut, where his force surrendered on 29 April 1916 after a prolonged Ottoman siege. A reorganized army under Lieutenant-General Stanley Maude captured Baghdad on 11 March 1917. British forces subsequently occupied Mosul in November 1918, after the Armistice of Mudros had ended hostilities with the Ottoman Empire. (nam.ac.uk)\n\nBritish assurances to Sharif Hussein of Mecca encouraged expectations that support for the Arab Revolt of 1916 would produce Arab independence. Instead, postwar settlements imposed British and French supervision, disappointing Hussein’s son Faisal and Arab nationalist officers who later helped staff the Iraqi state. Kurdish expectations followed a different, also unfulfilled, trajectory. Articles 62–64 of the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 envisaged autonomy in specified Kurdish areas of Anatolia and conditional independence, with the possibility of voluntary adherence by Kurds of the Mosul province. The treaty never entered into force; its replacement, the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, contained no corresponding provision for a Kurdish state. (un.org)\n\nThe San Remo Conference of April 1920 allocated the mandate for Mesopotamia to Britain under the League of Nations system. Opposition to foreign administration, taxation, and the exclusion of Iraqis from authority brought urban nationalists, Sunni and Shia religious figures, and tribal groups into resistance. Armed revolt spread through the middle Euphrates region during the summer of 1920; British reinforcements and aerial operations suppressed it by late October. Its financial and military costs helped persuade Britain to replace direct administration with an Iraqi government supervised by British advisers. The Cairo Conference of 1921 endorsed Faisal as king, and he was enthroned on 23 August. The Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1922 preserved British influence over finance, defence, and foreign affairs; treaty arrangements subsequently supplied the framework for Britain’s mandatory responsibilities. (origins.osu.edu)\n\nMosul’s incorporation remained disputed because Turkey claimed the former Ottoman province. After negotiations failed, the League investigated the frontier and decided in December 1925 that Mosul should remain within Iraq, linking the settlement to continued British supervision and safeguards for its Kurdish inhabitants. Turkey accepted the frontier through the tripartite Treaty of Ankara, signed with Britain and Iraq on 5 June 1926. In the south, British high commissioner Percy Cox had already brokered the Uqair settlement of December 1922, defining boundaries involving Iraq, Najd, and Kuwait and establishing neutral zones. These separate negotiations—not simply a single wartime partition agreement—fixed major portions of the new state’s northern and southern territorial limits. (tile.loc.gov)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Kingdom, republic, and Ba'athist rule (1932–2003)",
      "text": "Iraq became formally independent under King Faisal I on 3 October 1932, when it joined the League of Nations. Independence ended the British mandate, but British influence continued through treaty arrangements and ties to the monarchy. Parliamentary institutions coexisted with recurring military intervention: the army staged a coup in 1936, and British forces overthrew a government sympathetic to the Axis powers in 1941. In the monarchy’s final years, the regent Abd al-Ilah and the frequently serving prime minister Nuri al-Said were central political figures. On 14 July 1958, officers led by Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abd al-Salam Arif overthrew the monarchy; King Faisal II and Abd al-Ilah were killed, and a republic was proclaimed. (digitallibrary.un.org)\n\nThe early republic was marked by competition among military officers, Arab nationalists, Communists, and the Ba'ath Party. Qasim survived a Ba'athist assassination attempt in October 1959 but was overthrown and killed in February 1963. The ensuing Ba'athist–nationalist government arrested and killed Communist opponents, using improvised detention centres and summary proceedings. Arif removed the Ba'athists from power in November 1963. After his death in a helicopter crash in April 1966, his brother Abd al-Rahman Arif succeeded him, remaining president until another Ba'athist coup in July 1968. (hrw.org)\n\nUnder President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, the Ba'athists developed a party-state centred on the Revolutionary Command Council, with Saddam Hussein becoming its deputy chairman and increasingly influential leader. Control rested on purges of military officers, the placement of party members in the armed forces, and extensive party and security organizations. Nationalization of the Iraq Petroleum Company in June 1972 enlarged state control over oil, although the immediate disruption reduced revenue; rising oil income subsequently financed development programmes and military expansion. Saddam succeeded al-Bakr as president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council in 1979, concentrating the principal state and party offices in his hands. (history.state.gov)\n\nThe Iran–Iraq War began with Iraq’s invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980 and continued until a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire took effect on 20 August 1988. Prolonged fighting, attacks on cities, and Iraq’s repeated use of chemical weapons produced extensive human and economic losses. Wartime borrowing left Iraq owing approximately US$37 billion to Gulf creditors by 1990. Within Iraq, the 1988 Anfal campaign combined military operations, forced displacement, detention, and mass killing against Kurdish communities. Human Rights Watch’s investigation, based on captured government records and survivor testimony, classified it as genocide and estimated that at least 50,000 people, possibly twice that number, had died. (assets.cambridge.org)\n\nIraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990 amid disputes over debt, oil production, and territory. The United Nations Security Council imposed comprehensive sanctions on 6 August; a United States-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the Gulf War, which ended on 28 February 1991. Saddam retained power and suppressed subsequent uprisings in the predominantly Shia south and Kurdish north. War damage and restrictions on trade and oil earnings severely constrained civilian supplies and infrastructure repair. The UN’s Oil-for-Food Programme, established in 1995 and implemented from December 1996, permitted monitored oil sales to finance food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods; approximately US$31 billion in supplies and equipment had reached Iraq by its termination in November 2003. (history.state.gov)\n\nOn 20 March 2003, a coalition led by the United States and United Kingdom invaded Iraq, citing disarmament and the removal of Saddam’s government among its objectives. The intelligence underpinning claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction subsequently proved flawed. US troops entered Baghdad by 9 April, effectively ending Ba'athist rule. The collapse of central authority was accompanied by widespread looting in Baghdad and other cities, while the Coalition Provisional Authority assumed occupation administration. (tnaqa.mirrorweb.com)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Post-2003 transition and the constitutional system",
      "text": "Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), headed by L. Paul Bremer, administered Iraq during the occupation. Its May 2003 orders excluded senior Ba’ath Party members from public employment and dissolved the army and several other state institutions. The Transitional Administrative Law, signed on March 8, 2004, established an interim constitutional framework and a timetable for elections and constitution-making. On June 28, 2004, the CPA transferred governing authority to an Iraqi interim government and dissolved itself. Elections on January 30, 2005, selected a 275-member Transitional National Assembly, which appointed a transitional executive and undertook the drafting of a permanent constitution. (media.defense.gov)\n\nConstitutional negotiations addressed the distribution of authority between Baghdad and the regions, the position of Islam, and the treatment of former Ba’athists. Sunni Arab participation in the transitional assembly was limited, and additional Sunni representatives were brought into the drafting process. The resulting text was submitted to a referendum on October 15, 2005: approximately 78.6 percent voted in favour and 21.4 percent against. Under the transitional rules, rejection required two-thirds opposition in at least three governorates. Anbar and Salahuddin exceeded that threshold, but Nineveh, where approximately 55 percent voted against, did not. The constitution therefore passed, and elections for the first Council of Representatives under the new system followed on December 15, 2005. (everycrsreport.com)\n\nArticle 1 defines Iraq as a federal, democratic parliamentary republic. The Council of Representatives, with 329 seats at the 2025 election, is elected for four-year terms and exercises legislative, budgetary, and executive-oversight powers. The president is the head of state, with principally representative and constitutional functions rather than responsibility for everyday government. Under Article 70, parliament elects the president by a two-thirds majority; if no candidate succeeds, a second ballot between the two leading candidates determines the winner. Article 76 requires the president to nominate the candidate of the largest parliamentary bloc as prime minister-designate within fifteen days. The nominee then has thirty days to present ministers and a government programme, which require parliamentary confidence by an absolute majority. (iq.parliament.iq)\n\nExecutive authority centres on the prime minister, who directs general policy, chairs the Council of Ministers, and serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The Council of Ministers proposes legislation, prepares the budget, implements laws, and supervises ministries. Parliament can withdraw confidence through constitutionally specified procedures, while the Federal Supreme Court exercises constitutional review and adjudicates disputes between federal and regional authorities. Alongside these formal rules, an informal power-sharing arrangement commonly called muhasasa allocates senior offices among political communities: the premiership conventionally goes to a Shia Arab, the presidency to a Kurd, and the parliamentary speakership to a Sunni Arab. These allocations are political conventions, not constitutional eligibility requirements; cabinet formation consequently involves negotiations among parties within, as well as between, those communities. (iq.parliament.iq)\n\nChanges of government have also followed prolonged coalition disputes and public protests. Adil Abdul-Mahdi resigned following the demonstrations that began in 2019, and an early parliamentary election took place in October 2021. Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement won 73 seats, the largest individual parliamentary contingent, but failed to establish its proposed coalition with Sunni and Kurdish partners. Its deputies resigned in June 2022, allowing replacement deputies to strengthen the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Shia parties. After more than a year of post-election deadlock, parliament elected Abdul Latif Rashid president in October 2022 and approved Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s government later that month. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk)\n\nThe November 11, 2025, election again produced no decisive single-party majority. Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition won 46 of 329 seats, while Coordination Framework parties remained central to assembling a governing bloc. Parliamentary selection of the next president took five months: Nizar Amedi was elected on April 11, 2026. On April 27, he designated Ali al-Zaidi, the Coordination Framework’s nominee, to form a government. Parliament approved Zaidi’s programme and 14 of his 23 ministerial nominees on May 14, and he was sworn in with a partial cabinet. Nine portfolios remained unresolved at that vote, including interior and defence; government formation thus extended approximately six months beyond the election, rather than ending with the presidential selection in April. (apnews.com)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Federalism and the Kurdistan Region",
      "text": "The 2005 Constitution recognizes the Kurdistan Region and its existing authorities as a federal region under Article 117. Articles 115 and 121 give regional institutions legislative, executive, and judicial authority outside the federal government’s exclusive competences; regional authorities may modify the application of federal legislation concerning matters outside those competences. Article 121 also authorizes regional police, security services, and guards, providing the constitutional basis for regional security institutions, including the Peshmerga. This arrangement establishes substantial autonomy within Iraqi federalism, rather than separate sovereignty: foreign policy, national defence policy, currency, and specified fiscal functions remain federal responsibilities. (iq.parliament.iq)\n\nErbil is the seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the regional parliament. The parliament passes laws, approves the regional budget, scrutinizes ministers, and grants or withdraws confidence from the cabinet. Its policy remit includes education, health, policing, regional finances, and natural resources; customs administration is a shared constitutional responsibility. Regional taxation and revenue collection therefore operate alongside federal fiscal powers, rather than forming a wholly independent system. The region has a separate presidency, whose statutory functions include promulgating legislation, returning bills for reconsideration, and convening the newly elected parliament. This office is distinct from the presidency of Iraq. (parliament.krd)\n\nControl of oil has produced repeated disputes over the limits of autonomy. Article 111 declares oil and gas the property of all Iraqis, while Article 112 provides for federal management of production from existing fields jointly with producing regions and governorates, and equitable revenue distribution. The KRG developed its own contracting framework under its 2007 oil and gas law; on 15 February 2022, the Federal Supreme Court declared that law unconstitutional, a decision the KRG rejected. In March 2023, pipeline exports through Turkey stopped following an international arbitration award concerning exports conducted without Baghdad’s authorization. Subsequent negotiations linked oil deliveries and non-oil revenue transfers to federal funding, particularly public-sector salaries. A July 2025 agreement addressed these obligations, and a September export arrangement required delivery of at least 230,000 barrels daily to the federal marketer SOMO, with another 50,000 barrels retained for local use. Producing companies were to receive $16 per barrel for production and transport costs. These mechanisms made federal marketing, revenue accounting, and producer reimbursement central to implementation. (investpromo.gov.iq)\n\nRegional government formation is shaped by competition between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). In the election of 20 October 2024, the KDP won 39 of the parliament’s 100 seats and the PUK 23, leaving neither with a majority. Their negotiations had not produced a new cabinet by September 2026, prolonging the institutional impasse after the election. Kurdish party bargaining also affects federal institutions: Iraq’s presidency has conventionally gone to a Kurdish politician, with the PUK traditionally supplying the federal president and the KDP holding the regional presidency. This is a political power-sharing practice, not an ethnic qualification imposed by the constitution. On 11 April 2026, the federal parliament elected PUK politician Nizar Amidi president of Iraq. (pukmedia.com)\n\nThe region’s constitutional recognition did not settle the status of Kirkuk and other disputed territories. Article 140 prescribed normalization, a census, and a referendum by 31 December 2007; that process was not completed by the deadline. On 25 September 2017, regional president Masoud Barzani proceeded with a non-binding independence referendum covering the region and Kurdish-controlled disputed areas. More than 92 percent of participating voters supported independence, but the vote did not establish a legal mechanism for secession. Federal forces retook Kirkuk on 16 October, reversing Kurdish control established after the Iraqi army’s withdrawal in 2014. The loss of the city and surrounding oil fields substantially reduced the territory and resources under Kurdish administration without resolving the underlying constitutional boundary dispute. (investpromo.gov.iq)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Population, society, and languages",
      "text": "Iraq’s 2024 population census counted 46,118,793 inhabitants, with detailed results released in 2025. It was the first census covering the entire country since 1987; the 1997 enumeration had excluded the Kurdistan Region. The count reflects substantial growth from the approximately 31.7 million people recorded in a 2009 population listing. Iraq’s demographic structure remains young: the final census results placed 60.4% of inhabitants between ages 15 and 64 and only 3.6% at 65 or older, leaving approximately 36% below age 15. This age distribution means that large cohorts enter schooling and working age each year. (ina.iq)\n\nUrbanization has concentrated population in Baghdad and other major centres, including Basra, Mosul, and Erbil. Census reporting in February 2025 indicated that approximately 70.2% of residents in federal Iraq lived in urban areas, compared with 84.6% in the Kurdistan Region. Urban expansion has not followed a uniform trajectory: Basra has continued to grow despite difficulties implementing development plans, while Mosul’s residential geography has been reshaped by wartime destruction and reconstruction. Population growth, displacement, and housing shortages also contribute to informal settlement; UN-Habitat’s interventions have included neighbourhood upgrading in Erbil and shelter projects in Baghdad. (apnews.com)\n\nArabs constitute the largest ethnic community, followed by Kurds, whose principal settlement areas lie in the north and northeast. Smaller communities include Turkmen, Assyrians, Armenians, Shabak, and Yazidis. These categories combine linguistic, ethnic, and religious identities rather than forming mutually exclusive classifications. Turkmen settlements extend across northern Iraq, notably through Tal Afar, Kirkuk, and Tuz Khurmatu; both Sunni and Shia communities exist among them. Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christian communities retain distinct communal and church identities, while Yazidi settlement is concentrated principally in Ninewa, including the Sinjar area. Conflict and emigration have substantially reduced several minority populations and altered the composition of their historic settlements. (euaa.europa.eu)\n\nArticle 4 of the 2005 constitution establishes Arabic and Kurdish as Iraq’s two official languages. Its provisions extend beyond symbolic recognition: they cover the official gazette, parliamentary and governmental proceedings, courts, official documents, and schooling. Federal institutions and official institutions in the Kurdistan Region are required to use both languages. The article also guarantees mother-tongue education in government institutions, subject to educational regulations, explicitly naming Turkmen, Syriac, and Armenian. Turkmen and Syriac have additional official status in administrative units where their speakers form substantial population concentrations; regions or governorates may recognize another local language through a majority vote in a referendum. (iq.parliament.iq)\n\nMuslims form the overwhelming majority of the population. Shia Arabs constitute the largest ethnoreligious community and predominate across much of southern Iraq; Shia communities also have a substantial presence in Baghdad and eastern districts. Sunni Arabs are concentrated principally in western and central areas, including Anbar and Salah al-Din, while most Kurds are Sunni Muslims. These broad distributions do not imply homogeneous governorates or neighbourhoods. Christian denominations, Yazidism, and the Sabean-Mandaean religion are among the country’s minority traditions. Article 2 establishes Islam as the state religion while explicitly guaranteeing freedom of religious belief and practice for Christians, Yazidis, and Mandaean Sabeans. (2021-2025.state.gov)\n\nExtended-family and tribal affiliations provide important frameworks for social obligation, economic support, and dispute settlement, particularly in western, central, and southern Iraq. Tribal organization links households and clans through claimed paternal descent; sheikhs may mediate reconciliation agreements, known as sulh, and compensation settlements, or fasl, alongside formal legal proceedings. These practices vary between communities and circumstances. Displacement has separated households from such networks and redistributed communities among towns, camps, and countries of emigration. IOM recorded 997,334 internally displaced people and 4,954,518 returnees as of 31 December 2025, with most remaining displaced people hosted in Ninewa, Duhok, and Erbil. Return counts indicate movement back to places of origin, not necessarily restoration of housing, livelihoods, or former community relations. (euaa.europa.eu)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Oil economy and public finance",
      "text": "Oil dominates Iraq’s production, export earnings, and public finances. The World Bank estimated that in 2025 it accounted for 53% of real GDP, 88% of government revenue, and 91% of merchandise exports. This concentration transmits changes in international oil prices and export volumes directly to government spending and foreign-exchange availability. Production restrictions also affect measured economic growth: during the first nine months of 2025, oil GDP contracted by 5.7% year-on-year under OPEC+ production limits, contributing to a 2.4% decline in total GDP. Non-oil activity remains partly dependent on the expenditure financed by oil receipts rather than providing an independent fiscal base. (worldbank.org)\n\nIraq was a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), established at the Baghdad conference of September 10–14, 1960; its representative was Tala’at al-Shaibani. The US Energy Information Administration’s July 2025 assessment placed Iraq’s proved crude-oil reserves at approximately 145 billion barrels, the world’s fifth-largest, and identified it as OPEC’s second-largest crude producer after Saudi Arabia. Major producing areas include Basra in the south and Kirkuk in the north. Export infrastructure is concentrated in the south: in 2024, seaborne crude exports averaged more than 3.2 million barrels per day, all shipped through Persian Gulf terminals. Basra’s offshore terminal and single-point mooring system depend on onshore pumping facilities and subsea pipelines; operational southern export capacity was approximately 3.4 million barrels per day in mid-2024. (opec.org)\n\nThis concentration leaves exports exposed to disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. During the 2026 regional war, restrictions on shipping sharply reduced export capacity and forced production cuts. Oil Ministry figures showed that March crude and condensate exports fell to 18.6 million barrels, from more than 99 million in February; export receipts declined from approximately US$6.81 billion to US$1.96 billion despite higher oil prices. The northern pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey provides a Mediterranean outlet that bypasses Hormuz, although legal and commercial disputes had interrupted its operation since March 2023. On August 1, 2026, Iraq and Turkey signed a one-year agreement providing for a minimum export volume of 750,000 barrels per day through the Kirkuk–Ceyhan route; this was an agreed volume, not a reported achieved flow. (worldbank.org)\n\nFiscal pressures preceded the shipping crisis. The International Monetary Fund estimated the 2024 deficit at 4.2% of GDP, with wages and pensions absorbing 22% of GDP. It calculated that the oil price required to balance the budget had risen from about US$54 per barrel in 2020 to US$84 in 2024. Financing shortages produced payment arrears, while domestic borrowing became increasingly important: in March 2025, the Finance Ministry and Central Bank of Iraq opened a US$2.3 billion domestic bond sale to finance capital expenditure. Finance Ministry accounts subsequently recorded a January 2026 deficit of approximately 339 billion dinars, before the regional war began. (imf.org)\n\nBudget authorization compounded these pressures. Although the 2023 budget law covered three years, parliament did not approve the amended 2025 expenditure schedules before that framework expired. By July 2026, a new budget law had also not been approved, and mandatory expenditure continued under the Federal Financial Management Law’s one-twelfth mechanism, which permits monthly allocations based on the previous year’s spending. Iraq historically lacked a sovereign wealth fund; that position changed in October 2026, when the government announced a Future Generations Fund with an initial balance of 1.5 trillion dinars. Diversification proposals advanced by the IMF emphasize customs and excise revenue, fewer income-tax exemptions, restraint in public-sector payroll growth, state-bank restructuring, and improved conditions for private investment—measures intended to reduce both budget dependence on oil and the non-oil economy’s dependence on government expenditure. (shafaq.com)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Non-oil economy and labor market",
      "text": "Agriculture, forestry, and fishing generated 3.4 percent of Iraq’s gross domestic product in 2024, while accounting for 8.4 percent of employment—approximately 725,000 workers—in the 2021 Labour Force Survey. These figures exclude some household production for own consumption from measured employment. Wheat dominates cereal production, but cultivated area and yields fluctuate with rainfall and the water allocated to irrigation. In September 2026, FAO estimated wheat production outside the Kurdistan Region at 5.6 million tonnes, supported by improved winter rainfall, subsidized seeds, and modern irrigation systems. This recovery coexisted with localized contraction: in some southern and southeastern areas, the government reduced the area irrigated with surface water by 50 percent to conserve scarce supplies. Date palms provide a distinct horticultural crop; FAO recorded date production of 735,400 tonnes in 2022, and Iraq selected dates for its One Country One Priority Product development programme. (databank.worldbank.org)\n\nConstruction and services absorb substantially more workers than manufacturing. In 2021, construction accounted for 16.3 percent of employment, wholesale and retail trade and vehicle repair for 14.2 percent, and manufacturing for 6.2 percent. Public administration, defence, education, and health also form important components of service employment. Non-oil activity remains closely connected to government expenditure: the International Monetary Fund estimated that non-oil output growth slowed from 13.8 percent in 2023 to 2.5 percent in 2024 as public investment and services weakened. Agriculture, manufacturing, and construction were more resilient, benefiting respectively from recovery after drought, expanded refining capacity, and household credit growth. Banking reform is part of the diversification agenda, including restructuring state-owned banks and modernizing private banks’ systems and international correspondent relationships. (ilo.org)\n\nThe public sector is a major employer rather than the employer of most workers: the 2021 survey counted approximately 3.26 million public-sector workers and 5.3 million private-sector workers. Nevertheless, public employment strongly influences the labor market because private-sector jobs generally offer lower wages, weaker job security, fewer benefits, and less reliable contractual protection. The IMF estimated central-government spending on salaries and pensions at 22 percent of GDP in 2024; this combined measure includes pension payments and is therefore broader than the wage bill alone. Its 2025 assessment identified mandatory hiring and differences between public- and private-sector employment conditions as obstacles to private-sector recruitment and productivity. Proposed reforms included unified civil-service rules, merit-based hiring, and better alignment of training with employers’ needs. (ilo.org)\n\nThe 2021 survey measured unemployment at 16.5 percent, rising to 35.8 percent among people aged 15–24 and 28.2 percent among women participating in the labor force. Participation itself was low: 39.5 percent overall, 68 percent among men, and 10.6 percent among women. Time-related underemployment affected 7.9 percent of employed people, defined as workers with insufficient hours who wanted and were available for additional work. Informal jobs accounted for 66.6 percent of employment, or approximately 5.73 million workers, whereas employment in informal-sector enterprises accounted for 54.8 percent. The distinction matters because jobs lacking formal protection can also exist within otherwise formal enterprises. Formalization initiatives consequently address both enterprise registration and workers’ access to contracts and social protection. (ilo.org)\n\nThe 2023–2024 household socioeconomic survey placed national poverty at 17.5 percent, compared with 18.9 percent in 2012; the World Bank reported a broadly stable Gini coefficient of approximately 0.30. Income measures do not capture all deprivation: Iraq’s 2024 multidimensional poverty assessment also examined deficits in education, housing, and digital access. In the internationally comparable 2025 Human Development Report, using 2023 data, Iraq’s Human Development Index was 0.695, ranking 126th among 193 countries and territories. Job creation faces continuing demographic pressure: a 2025 IMF study estimated working-age population growth at 3.5 percent annually and anticipated more than 780,000 new labor-market entrants each year, increasing the importance of private employment, vocational preparation, and wider access to formal work. (documents1.worldbank.org)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Infrastructure, electricity, and energy",
      "text": "Iraq’s electricity system combines gas- and oil-fired domestic generation with imported electricity, but available supply remains substantially below summer demand. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated federal Iraq’s available peak generation at 25 gigawatts (GW) in 2024, against approximately 48 GW required at the summer peak. About 99% of national generation came from oil and natural gas, with small contributions from hydroelectricity and solar power. Fuel shortages, inefficient or damaged generating equipment, and weaknesses in the transmission and distribution network constrain usable output. Direct electricity imports from Iran represented about 2% of federal supply in 2023, whereas imported Iranian gas supported more than 30% of generation: dependence on imported fuel was therefore much greater than dependence on imported electricity itself. (eia.gov)\n\nGas recovery links electricity development to the oil industry. Iraq flared approximately 625 billion cubic feet of gas in 2023 because gathering pipelines and processing infrastructure could not absorb all the gas produced alongside crude oil. (eia.gov) Basrah Gas Company, a joint venture involving the Iraqi government, Shell, and Mitsubishi, began operations in 2013 and subsequently increased processing from 250 million to 950 million cubic feet per day—enough, according to Shell, to support approximately 3.5 GW of electricity generation. (shell.iq) The Gas Growth Integrated Project, launched in 2023 by TotalEnergies and its partners, adds another gas-recovery programme. Construction of its ArtawiGas25 facility began in January 2025, with a designed processing capacity of 50 million cubic feet per day. The larger first-phase processing plant is designed to recover 300 million cubic feet per day from three southern oilfields, supplying fuel for approximately 1.5 GW of generation. These are processing and generation-support capacities, not measurements of electricity already delivered. (totalenergies.com)\n\nRoads carry more than 90% of Iraq’s transportation activity, but substantial portions of the network are in moderate or poor condition. On 4 June 2026, the World Bank approved US$900 million for the Iraq Transport Economic Corridors project, supporting road infrastructure, safer travel, and regional connectivity. (worldbank.org) The principal railway rehabilitation programme connects Umm Qasr Port, in the southern Basra area, with Baghdad and Mosul. Approved in June 2025 with US$930 million in financing, the Iraq Railways Extension and Modernization project covers 1,047 kilometres of existing railway, refurbishment of the Baiji maintenance workshop, and renewal of locomotives, rolling stock, equipment, and spare parts. It also provides for private participation in dry ports and logistics hubs, connecting maritime freight handling with inland distribution. (worldbank.org)\n\nThe proposed Development Road is distinct from rehabilitation of the existing railway. Announced in May 2023, it envisages a roughly 1,200-kilometre road-and-rail corridor linking the Grand Faw port development and Basra with the Turkish border, and onward through Turkey towards Europe. Its announced investment estimate was US$17 billion. The corridor’s transport function depends on connecting southern ports to inland freight routes rather than treating port construction as a stand-alone investment; World Bank project documents accordingly identify improvements to existing transport infrastructure as an initial component of wider regional connectivity. (documents1.worldbank.org)\n\nSolar energy development encompasses utility-scale plants and rooftop systems intended to reduce reliance on neighbourhood generators. Iraq’s 2025 Climate Investment Plan describes a target of approximately 12 GW of solar capacity by 2030, presented as about one-quarter of planned power generation. (undp.org) A major example is the 1-GW alternating-current solar plant within the Gas Growth Integrated Project; construction had begun by September 2025. (totalenergies.com) Policy development extends beyond capacity targets. UNDP’s September 2025 power-sector roadmap examines tariff reform, investment scenarios, grid modernization, and renewable integration, while its mitigation strategy identifies regulatory barriers and limited provision for small and medium-sized distributed generation between household rooftop installations and large solar farms. (undp.org)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Environment, climate vulnerability, and biodiversity",
      "text": "Rising temperatures and declining water availability reinforce Iraq’s vulnerability to climate change. A 2021 World Bank assessment projected an increase of approximately \\(2.5\\,^\\circ\\mathrm{C}\\) in average annual temperature and a 9% decline in annual rainfall by 2040–2059. These are model-based projections rather than uniform predictions for every locality. A subsequent World Bank synthesis estimated that climate change could reduce Iraq’s water availability by 13–28% by 2050. Changes in temperature and precipitation alter the water cycle, compounding pressure on the Tigris–Euphrates basin from withdrawals and river regulation; the resulting reductions in freshwater supply affect terrestrial vegetation and aquatic habitats as well as agriculture. (documents1.worldbank.org)\n\nDesertification is distinct from the presence of naturally occurring desert: it involves the degradation of productive drylands. Iraq’s government assessment, publicized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in January 2014, estimated that 39% of the country’s surface had been affected by desertification and another 54% was threatened. These figures describe that assessment period, not a continuously updated land inventory. Loss of soil moisture and vegetation leaves fine surface material exposed to wind erosion, while overgrazing and unsustainable land use can intensify the process. Dust removes fertile topsoil, damages crops and machinery, and reduces visibility. UNEP specialist Diane Klaimi identified increasing dust-storm frequency and intensity as an important consequence of interacting land degradation and climatic pressures; such storms can also transport material across national borders, making their sources broader than the cities they affect. (unep.org)\n\nThe Mesopotamian marshes, or Ahwar, comprise the Huwaizah, Central and Hammar wetland systems of southern Iraq. Their degradation resulted from a combination of upstream regulation, drainage, war, drought and other pressures. Extensive drainage during the 1980s and 1990s contributed to their near-total destruction by 2003. Reflooding subsequently produced substantial but incomplete recovery: UNEP reported in December 2006 that almost half of their former 1970s extent had recovered. Its 2004–2009 restoration programme combined environmental monitoring, training and pilot projects for wetland management, drinking water and sanitation. Recovery of flooded area did not remove the underlying dependence on sustained freshwater inflows or the continuing risks posed by drought and salinity. (unep.org)\n\nThese wetlands have international importance for biodiversity. Their reed beds, open water and interconnected channels support migratory birds and the movement of fish and shrimp between the Persian Gulf and inland waters. The Ahwar property, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016, includes four wetland components. UNESCO identifies the marshes as major staging and wintering grounds for ducks and stopover habitat along the West Asian–East African flyway. Species associated with them include the Basra reed warbler, Iraq babbler, marbled teal, a local subspecies of smooth-coated otter and the Euphrates softshell turtle. The property also supports six range-restricted fish species, making habitat loss consequential for populations with limited alternative ranges. (whc.unesco.org)\n\nInvasive species add a separate pressure to freshwater ecosystems. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) has been documented in Iraq’s waterways, including the Tigris in Wasit province. Its dense floating growth changes aquatic habitat conditions. A study by Hasanain Ali Al-Kinani and Hussain Alwan Mana, published in 2025 using samples collected in autumn 2023 from Shatt al-Ksar in Thi Qar, found the lowest dissolved-oxygen levels at the station with dense plant cover. The authors associated this with oxygen consumption during decomposition and restricted gas exchange beneath the vegetation. Although the plant accumulated metals and petroleum hydrocarbons, this pollutant uptake coexisted with adverse water-quality conditions under dense growth. (agris.fao.org)\n\nIn the Shatt al-Arab and southern coastal zone, saltwater intrusion changes the boundary between freshwater and marine habitats. Reduced river discharge weakens the freshwater flow opposing tidal seawater penetration. Measurements undertaken in 2019–2020 and reported in a later study placed the intrusion distance at approximately 83.7–112.4 kilometres upstream. Salinity also reaches riverside soils through direct infiltration and irrigation with saline river water. Modelling published in 2023 demonstrated how reduced discharge and tidal conditions can intensify both river salinity and soil salinization, linking estuarine change to degradation of adjacent date-palm cultivation. (tandfonline.com)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Health, education, and social services",
      "text": "The Ministry of Health is the principal provider of Iraq’s public health services, operating hospitals, specialized centres and a network of primary-care facilities. Private hospitals and clinics supplement this network, and physicians commonly combine public employment with private practice. The national health policy for 2014–2023 recorded 2,632 primary-care centres, 257 public hospitals and 111 private hospitals in 2014; private hospitals were concentrated particularly in Baghdad. Public hospital services generally carried only nominal charges, while waiting times and perceptions of quality encouraged private consultations. Facilities and skilled personnel were unevenly distributed between governorates and between urban and rural communities. Conflict compounded these disparities through damaged infrastructure, displacement, shortages of medicines and reduced staffing; subsequent rehabilitation has included primary care, vaccination, maternal and child health, and trauma services. (extranet.who.int)\n\nContaminated water and inadequate sanitation remain important public-health risks. WHO’s regional surveillance recorded 11,097 suspected acute watery diarrhoea/cholera cases and 24 associated deaths in Iraq in 2022; suspected cases should not be equated with laboratory-confirmed cholera. The response combined surveillance and laboratory testing with case management, water-quality monitoring and improvements to water, sanitation and hygiene systems. Tuberculosis presents a separate, airborne infectious-disease burden: WHO reported that its incidence declined from 45 cases per 100,000 people in 2013 to 23 in 2023. The National Tuberculosis Programme works with WHO and other partners, and treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis shifted from injectable medicines to all-oral regimens beginning in 2020. (emro.who.int)\n\nState school education is free. Outside the Kurdistan Region, its structure comprises six years of compulsory primary schooling beginning at age six, three intermediate years and three preparatory years, with academic and technical pathways at the upper-secondary level. In the Kurdistan Region, compulsory basic education extends through grade nine. UNESCO’s 2026 Global Education Monitoring analysis estimated that primary completion increased from 68% in 2010 to 83% in 2020, while upper-secondary completion rose from 22% to 48%. These national improvements coexisted with substantial local disruption: approximately half the schools in territory occupied during the 2013–2017 conflict were damaged or destroyed, and the 2018 household survey omitted displaced people living in camps and some other inaccessible populations. (gem-report-education-profiles.unesco.org)\n\nExpansion of higher education has involved both public universities and private universities and colleges. The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research’s 2024 institutional ranking covered 100 institutions and 2,072 scientific departments, compared with 95 institutions and 1,875 departments in the preceding edition. Literacy remains uneven across generations and sexes: UNESCO’s country profile published in October 2022 reported adult literacy of 85.6%, including 91.2% among men and 79.9% among women. Non-formal and accelerated-learning programmes provide routes back into education after interrupted schooling. In 2023, a UNICEF-supported campaign in the Kurdistan Region identified more than 35,000 out-of-school children and re-enrolled over 12,000, including refugees. (mohesr.gov.iq)\n\nSocial protection combines pensions, targeted cash assistance and broadly distributed subsidies. The Public Distribution System originated during the sanctions of the 1990s and allocates subsidized food according to household members registered on ration cards. A World Bank assessment reported that food assistance reached 95% of the population in 2017. Its broad coverage distinguishes it from poverty-targeted cash transfers: the Bank’s 2023 analysis found these transfers more cost-effective in reducing poverty and inequality than pensions or food rations. Fuel and electricity subsidies also support household consumption, but larger benefits accrue to households consuming more energy. (documents1.worldbank.org)\n\nProvincial service provision is also supported through the Iraq Social Fund for Development, which finances locally prioritized roads, water systems, schools and health facilities. Communities participate in selecting projects, while local contractors and labour-intensive construction connect service improvements with temporary employment. In August 2026, the World Bank reported approximately 600 implemented community projects, improved access to basic services for more than 352,000 households and over 47,000 short-term employment beneficiaries. (worldbank.org)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Culture, religion, and heritage",
      "text": "Islam shapes public cultural life through pilgrimage, religious education, charitable institutions, and commemorations. Najaf’s shrine of Imam Ali is a major Shia pilgrimage destination, while its religious seminaries form an important centre of scholarship whose institutional origins extend to the eleventh century. Karbala contains the shrines of Husayn ibn Ali and his half-brother Abbas; Husayn’s death at Karbala in 680 is commemorated during Ashura and, forty days later, Arbaʿin. These observances also sustain extensive networks of voluntary hospitality. Along the Arbaʿin pilgrimage routes, associations and households provide free food, accommodation, and other services; UNESCO inscribed this hospitality tradition on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2019. (iranicaonline.org)\n\nNorthern Iraq’s religious monuments preserve both Muslim and Christian traditions. In Mosul, the Sunni al-Nuri mosque complex included the al-Hadba minaret, built in 1172, whose leaning silhouette became a distinctive feature of the city. Christian landmarks include the Syriac Catholic al-Tahera Church, opened in 1862, and the Dominican al-Saaʿa convent, also called Our Lady of the Hour. These buildings function as places of worship as well as components of the historic urban landscape; all three complexes became focal points of post-conflict reconstruction. (unesco.org)\n\nIraq’s archaeological heritage includes several distinct UNESCO World Heritage properties. Hatra, inscribed in 1985, preserves a fortified city whose temples combine Hellenistic and Roman architectural influences with regional decorative forms. Samarra Archaeological City, inscribed in 2007, retains the plan, palaces, mosques, and spiral minarets of a capital of the Abbasid Caliphate between 836 and 892. Ur is not separately inscribed: it forms part of the Ahwar of Southern Iraq property, listed in 2016 alongside Uruk, Eridu, and four wetland components. Its monumental remains connect the marshland landscape with early Mesopotamian urban civilization. Babylon, inscribed in 2019, includes walls, gates, palaces, and temples associated particularly with the Neo-Babylonian capital of 626–539 BCE. (whc.unesco.org)\n\nBaghdad’s literary and artistic traditions encompass classical Arabic poetry, manuscript production, and modern experimentation. Qurʾan manuscripts copied there in 1192 and 1307 demonstrate the continuation of its calligraphic workshops across the end of Abbasid rule. In modern poetry, Nazik al-Malaʾika’s “Cholera” (1947) became an important early example of Arabic free verse; her critical writing challenged the requirement that poetic lines conform to inherited arrangements of metrical feet. In the visual arts, Jawad Saleem and Shakir Hassan Al Said founded the Baghdad Group for Modern Art in 1951, seeking to combine contemporary artistic methods with local heritage. Al Said subsequently explored Arabic letters as abstract visual elements rather than solely as readable text, including in the One Dimension group established in 1971. (resources.metmuseum.org)\n\nIraqi maqam, inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List in 2008 after its original proclamation in 2003, links musical performance with classical and colloquial Arabic poetry. A lead singer, or qariʾ, performs ornamented and improvised passages in interaction with the accompanying tshalghi ensemble. Characteristic instruments include the santur zither, four-string jawzah spike fiddle, dumbak hand drum, and daff tambourine. Performances traditionally take place in coffeehouses, theatres, and private gatherings, joining inherited melodic structures to the performer’s improvisational skill. (ich.unesco.org)\n\nHeritage protection has required both the recovery of movable objects and the reconstruction of damaged monuments. Museum staff estimated that approximately 15,000 objects were looted from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad in 2003, including about 5,000 cylinder seals. International assistance subsequently supported recovery efforts, restoration of the museum laboratory, and staff training. During the ISIS occupation, objects in the Mosul Museum and architectural decoration at Hatra suffered deliberate destruction. UNESCO’s Revive the Spirit of Mosul initiative restored the al-Nuri complex, al-Saaʿa convent, and al-Tahera Church with United Arab Emirates funding; reconstruction was completed in January 2025, and inauguration ceremonies followed in September. Work on al-Hadba used traditional techniques and materials salvaged from the rubble, while associated programmes rehabilitated 124 historic houses by the end of 2024. (unesco.org)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Foreign relations and regional position",
      "text": "Relations with Iran combine economic interdependence, shared Shia religious connections, and links between Tehran and Iraqi political organizations. Iranian natural gas supplies support Iraqi electricity generation, while pilgrimage to Najaf and Karbala sustains cross-border travel and religious contacts. Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian made Iraq his first foreign destination after taking office, arriving on 11 September 2024; the visit produced 14 memoranda covering trade, agriculture, education, communications, tourism, and other fields. Iran also maintains relationships with Iraqi parties and armed organizations, giving the bilateral relationship channels beyond formal diplomacy. These connections coexist with Iraq’s relations with Washington rather than constituting an exclusive alliance. On 28 June 2026, Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein, speaking alongside his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, called for implementation of American–Iranian understandings to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and reiterated Iraq’s opposition to expanding the regional war. (clickondetroit.com)\n\nThe institutional framework for relations with the United States is the Strategic Framework Agreement, signed on 17 November 2008 and effective from 1 January 2009. It encompasses political, economic, educational, cultural, and security cooperation, rather than military deployment alone. The American ambassador—or chargé d’affaires when the mission is headed in that capacity—provides a diplomatic channel to Iraq’s executive and parliamentary institutions: on 13 September 2026, chargé d’affaires Steven Fagin met parliamentary speaker Haibet Alhalbousi to discuss bilateral cooperation and regional developments. Security relations changed substantially when the United States announced completion of its troop withdrawal on 30 September 2026, implementing the drawdown agreed in 2024. Separately, NATO’s non-combat advisory mission continued from Allied Joint Force Command Naples after relocating its personnel from Baghdad in March 2026 because of regional insecurity. (2021-2025.state.gov)\n\nRelations with the United Kingdom likewise extend beyond counterterrorism. During Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s visit to London in January 2025, he and Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and announced an export and trade package worth up to £12.3 billion. Their accompanying defence statement specified military education exchanges, British advice on capability development and institutional reform, and defence-industrial partnerships. The broader agreement also covered investment, infrastructure, educational and cultural links, and cooperation against irregular migration and people smuggling. The announced package represented prospective agreements and opportunities, not a measure of trade already completed. (gov.uk)\n\nRelations with Turkey link substantial commerce to disputes over water and military operations. According to Turkey’s foreign ministry, bilateral merchandise trade reached $16.8 billion in 2025, comprising $12.4 billion in Turkish exports and $4.4 billion in imports. Baghdad has repeatedly objected to Turkish incursions and bases directed against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as violations of Iraqi sovereignty, although security coordination increased after Iraq banned the organization in March 2024. Joint mechanisms now address border security, counterterrorism, energy, and water. A water-project financing mechanism signed on 2 November 2025 supplemented the cooperation framework concluded during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s April 2024 visit. That visit also produced a quadrilateral memorandum with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the Development Road, connecting Iraq’s transport ambitions with Turkish and Gulf interests. (mfa.gov.tr)\n\nRegional diplomacy has included efforts to bring competing neighbors into common forums. Baghdad hosted Saudi–Iranian talks in 2021, while the Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership met in Iraq in August 2021 and in Jordan in December 2022, bringing together Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other regional participants. Iraq is a founding member of the United Nations, with membership dating from 21 December 1945, and of the Arab League, established on 22 March 1945. It hosted the League’s thirty-fourth summit on 17 May 2025, attended by UN secretary-general António Guterres. Iraq also helped establish OPEC at the Baghdad Conference of 10–14 September 1960, alongside Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela; Iraqi representative Tala’at al-Shaibani was among its five founding delegates. (axios.com)"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Security, armed groups, and conflict legacy",
      "text": "In 2014, Islamic State (ISIS, also called ISIL or Daesh) seized approximately one-third of Iraq’s territory, establishing control over major northern and western population centres. Its capture of Mosul in June exposed the collapse of government security arrangements in much of Nineveh province. Iraqi forces subsequently recovered territory with support from Kurdish Peshmerga, tribal forces, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the United States-led coalition. Mosul was recaptured after a nine-month campaign in July 2017; operations then cleared remaining strongholds, including Hawija, al-Qaim, and Rawah. On 9 December 2017, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory following operations in the Jazirah desert and along the Syrian border. This ended ISIS’s territorial rule in Iraq, rather than eliminating its clandestine cells. (news.trust.org)\n\nThe Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF; al-Hashd al-Shaabi) developed in 2014 after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for volunteers to defend Iraq against ISIS. Predominantly Shia, the umbrella organization includes factions with differing leaderships and relationships with Iran. Legislation passed in November 2016 placed the PMF within the national security framework, reporting to the prime minister. Formal incorporation did not eliminate separate factional chains of command. On 1 July 2019, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi ordered closer integration into the armed forces and required constituent groups to choose between political and paramilitary activity, with a 31 July compliance deadline. Some formations nevertheless retained independent organization and operational decision-making. (news.trust.org)\n\nWeapons control became a central government initiative in 2026. In June, the government announced a 30 September deadline for surrendering weapons outside state control, stating that subsequent unauthorized armed activity would fall under anti-terrorism legislation and that offending organizations and individuals would be treated as outlaws. A cabinet committee was established to oversee disarmament and integration. Responses differed: on 2 June, Asaib Ahl al-Haq announced a committee to inventory fighters, weapons, and equipment and coordinate with the commander-in-chief; the Imam Ali Brigades announced a similar commitment. Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba rejected unconditional disarmament. The original deadline was subsequently superseded: on 1 October, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi set 30 June 2027 as the completion date, following a 90-day preparatory period and phased handover. The announced legal consequences therefore should not be confused with a completed nationwide disarmament or documented blanket application of penalties after September. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk)\n\nNorthern security arrangements involve both federal forces and the Peshmerga, whose units remain divided between forces associated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The border mountains have also accommodated the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), whose conflict with Turkey has brought Turkish military operations into northern Iraq. A symbolic disarmament ceremony near Sulaymaniyah on 11 July 2025 involved 30 PKK fighters burning their weapons; it was an initial step in a peace process, not the immediate removal of all armed structures. During the 2026 regional conflict, attacks also struck Kurdish areas, including facilities associated with exiled Iranian Kurdish groups and energy infrastructure. Coalition bases were repeatedly targeted, while the planned withdrawal of American air-defence equipment raised concerns about protection of the region. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk)\n\nThe conflict’s civilian legacy includes unresolved displacement, mass atrocities, and explosive contamination. In 2021, the United Nations investigative team UNITAD reported evidence establishing that ISIS’s attacks on the Yazidi community in Sinjar constituted genocide. UNHCR continues to report approximately one million internally displaced Iraqis. Landmines, improvised explosive devices, and unexploded ordnance obstruct return, farming, and reconstruction: UNMAS recorded approximately 2,733 square kilometres of contaminated land in its first-half 2025 factsheet. During that six-month period, its programme removed 7,401 explosive remnants of war and 399 improvised explosive devices in Nineveh governorate, illustrating the continuing clearance burden after territorial fighting ended. (iraq.un.org)"
    }
  ],
  "links": [
    "river",
    "mesopotamia",
    "iran",
    "turkey",
    "syria",
    "saudi-arabia",
    "federalism",
    "constitution",
    "groundwater",
    "irrigation",
    "climate",
    "wetland",
    "world-bank",
    "uruk",
    "writing-system",
    "hammurabi",
    "epic-of-gilgamesh",
    "persian-empire",
    "alexander-the-great",
    "roman-empire",
    "abbasid-caliphate",
    "ottoman-empire",
    "world-war-i",
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    "petroleum",
    "united-nations-security-council",
    "united-states",
    "united-kingdom",
    "judicial-review",
    "demography",
    "urbanization",
    "islam",
    "christianity",
    "gross-domestic-product",
    "strait-of-hormuz",
    "central-bank",
    "labor-market",
    "unemployment",
    "poverty",
    "electricity",
    "natural-gas",
    "electrical-grid",
    "railway",
    "solar-energy",
    "climate-change",
    "water-cycle",
    "biodiversity",
    "unesco",
    "invasive-species",
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    "public-health",
    "cholera",
    "tuberculosis",
    "education",
    "higher-education",
    "literacy",
    "intangible-cultural-heritage",
    "cultural-heritage",
    "poetry",
    "museum",
    "sovereignty",
    "united-nations"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Microsoft Word - Iraq.docx",
      "url": "https://infcis.iaea.org/udepo/Resources/Countries/Iraq.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "World Bank Document",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099110823040034510/pdf/P17116507bad4c0a00aa1108034f6a199c7.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq Geography 2023, CIA World Factbook",
      "url": "https://theodora.com/world_fact_book_2023/iraq/iraq_geography.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq declares Halabja, scene of Saddam's gas attack on Kurds, as 19th province",
      "url": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/04/14/iraq-declares-halabja-scene-of-saddams-gas-attack-on-kurds-as-19th-province/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraqi parliament passes bill to make Halabja the 19th province",
      "url": "https://www.rudaw.net/english/categories/iraq/864151"
    },
    {
      "title": "UNAMI Submits its Reports on the Disputed Internal Boundaries",
      "url": "https://iraq.un.org/en/257020-unami-submits-its-reports-disputed-internal-boundaries"
    },
    {
      "title": "Office of Political Affairs and Analysis",
      "url": "https://iraq.un.org/en/138098-office-political-affairs-and-analysis"
    },
    {
      "title": "Briefing to the Security Council by SRSG for Iraq Ján Kubiš New York, 22 November 2017 (AS PREPARED)",
      "url": "https://iraq.un.org/en/214587-briefing-security-council-srsg-iraq-j%C3%A1n-kubi%C5%A1-new-york-22-november-2017-prepared"
    },
    {
      "title": "Groundwater Search by Remote Sensing: A Methodological Approach — Chapter 1: Introduction",
      "url": "https://www.fao.org/4/y4639e/y4639e03.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-D214-PURL-gpo50950/pdf/GOVPUB-D214-PURL-gpo50950.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Main Physical Parts of Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.cosit.gov.iq/AAS13/Physical%20Features%201/phys-feat%20test1.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "IV. Country Reports",
      "url": "https://www.fao.org/4/x5868e/x5868e04.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Towards a Strategy for Sustainable Agricultural Development: The Transitional Process",
      "url": "https://www.fao.org/4/Y9870E/y9870e05.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Geography — Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Washington, D.C.",
      "url": "https://iraqiembassy.us/geography/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Irrigation in the Middle East Region in Figures — AQUASTAT Survey 2008",
      "url": "https://www.fao.org/4/i0936e/i0936e00.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Inventory of Shared Water Resources in Western Asia: Euphrates River Basin",
      "url": "https://waterinventory.org/sites/waterinventory.org/files/chapters/Chapter-01-Euphrates-River-Basin-web.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Inventory of Shared Water Resources in Western Asia: Tigris River Basin",
      "url": "https://waterinventory.org/sites/waterinventory.org/files/chapters/Chapter-03-Tigris_River-Basin-web_0.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Irrigation in the near east region in figures: Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.fao.org/4/W4356E/w4356e0e.HTM"
    },
    {
      "title": "Inventory of Shared Water Resources in Western Asia: Information Brochure",
      "url": "https://waterinventory.org/sites/waterinventory.org/files/00-Information-brochure-Water-Inventory-web.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Identifying the preserved network of irrigation canals in the Eridu region, southern Mesopotamia",
      "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/identifying-the-preserved-network-of-irrigation-canals-in-the-eridu-region-southern-mesopotamia/2B2BE82BACA8A2BEFCB4C43A140419C5"
    },
    {
      "title": "Irrigation in the Middle East region in figures – AQUASTAT Survey 2008: Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.fao.org/4/i0936e/i0936e08.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "On World Children’s Day, UNICEF warns Iraq’s growing water crisis is putting children’s futures at risk",
      "url": "https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-releases/world-childrens-day-unicef-warns-iraqs-growing-water-crisis-putting-childrens"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq’s historic marshes revive as water returns after years of drought",
      "url": "https://whbl.com/2026/05/07/iraqs-historic-marshes-revive-as-water-returns-after-years-of-drought/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Troubled Waters in Conflict and a Changing Climate: Transboundary Basins Across the Middle East and North Africa",
      "url": "https://carnegieendowment.org/files/Daoudy_et_al_ME_Climate_Change_draft.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Turkey, Iraq sign oil-for-water deal: What to know",
      "url": "https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2025/11/turkey-iraq-sign-oil-water-deal-what-know"
    },
    {
      "title": "Basra is Thirsty: Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Water Crisis",
      "url": "https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/07/22/basra-thirsty/iraqs-failure-manage-water-crisis"
    },
    {
      "title": "Multi-Tiered Approaches to Solving the Water Crisis in Basra, Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.unicef.org/documents/multi-tiered-approaches-solving-water-crisis-basra-iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "The European Union and UNICEF, in collaboration with Eni, launch a project to improve the water quality for 850,000 people in Basra",
      "url": "https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-releases/european-union-and-unicef-collaboration-eni-launch-project-improve-water-quality"
    },
    {
      "title": "Prime Minister Mohammed S. Al-Sudani Affirms Seawater Desalination Project as a Fundamental Solution to Water Scarcity",
      "url": "https://ina.iq/en/politics/41310-prime-minister-mohammed-s-al-sudani-affirms-seawater-desalination-project-as-a-fundamental-solution-to-water-scarcity.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "On World Water Day, the Directorate of Water and UNICEF Call for Immediate Action to Protect Iraq’s Water Resources and Ensure a Safe Future for Children",
      "url": "https://iraq.un.org/en/291447-world-water-day-directorate-water-and-unicef-call-immediate-action-protect-iraq%E2%80%99s-water"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq Country Climate and Development Report",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099005012092241290/pdf/P1776390cfceae0d908ff8073b7e041bea6.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "INA publishes the mechanism for implementing water cooperation between Iraq and Turkey",
      "url": "https://ina.iq/en/local/43365-ina-publishes-the-mechanism-for-implementing-water-cooperation-between-iraq-and-turkey.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Exhibition—Uruk: 5,000 Years Megacity",
      "url": "https://www.lwl.org/uruk/start_html/html/3xx/uruk-ausstellung/die-ausstellung/index-lang%3Den.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 41, no. 4",
      "url": "https://resources.metmuseum.org/resources/metpublications/pdf/Ancient_Near_Eastern_Art_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v_41_no_4_Spring_1984.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Code of Hammurabi",
      "url": "https://www.louvre.fr/en/the-code-of-hammurabi"
    },
    {
      "title": "Code de Hammurabi",
      "url": "https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark%3A/53355/cl010174436"
    },
    {
      "title": "L'archeologia del Vicino Oriente. La Mesopotamia seleucide, partica e sasanide",
      "url": "https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/l-archeologia-del-vicino-oriente-la-mesopotamia-seleucide-partica-e-sasanide_%28Il-Mondo-dell%27Archeologia%29/"
    },
    {
      "title": "From al-Biṭrīq to Ḥunayn: Melkite and Nestorian Translators in Early ʿAbbāsid Baghdad",
      "url": "https://journals.uco.es/index.php/mediterranea/article/view/13666"
    },
    {
      "title": "Al-Khwarizmi (790–850): Biography",
      "url": "https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Al-Khwarizmi/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq: A Country Study",
      "url": "https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/frd/frdcstdy/ir/iraqcountrystudy00metz_0/iraqcountrystudy00metz_0.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul — A History of Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-iraq/ottoman-provinces-of-baghdad-basra-and-mosul/794EB32F29CDF33873EA5DB101868E94"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq — THE OTTOMAN PERIOD, 1534–1918",
      "url": "https://countrystudies.us/iraq/18.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Mosul — Encyclopedia.com",
      "url": "https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/asia/iraq-political-geography/mosul"
    },
    {
      "title": "Mesopotamia campaign — National Army Museum",
      "url": "https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/mesopotamia-campaign"
    },
    {
      "title": "Faisal memorandum — Conference of Allied Powers/UK House of Commons",
      "url": "https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-203679/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq — WORLD WAR I AND THE BRITISH MANDATE",
      "url": "https://countrystudies.us/iraq/19.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq's 1920 Revolution — Origins",
      "url": "https://origins.osu.edu/index.php/connecting-history/iraq-1920-revolution-revolt"
    },
    {
      "title": "The English-Turkish Conflict of Mosul — Kurdish Studies Archive",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004708464_005"
    },
    {
      "title": "Mandatory Iraq",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "The United Nations and the Iraq-Kuwait Conflict, 1990–1996",
      "url": "https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/205405/files/DPI_1770%26%5EST_%5EDPI_1770-EN.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Human Rights in Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.hrw.org/reports/Iraq90N.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Historical Documents: National Intelligence Estimate, Iraq",
      "url": "https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve04/d330"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Gulf War, 1991",
      "url": "https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/gulf-war"
    },
    {
      "title": "Introduction: Genocide in Iraq—The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds",
      "url": "https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ANFALINT.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds",
      "url": "https://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/i/iraq/iraq.937/anfalfull.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Resolution 661 (1990)",
      "url": "https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/94221?ln=en&v=%5B%22%5B%27pdf%27%5D%22%5D"
    },
    {
      "title": "Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq and Its Aftermath",
      "url": "https://www.hrw.org/report/1992/06/01/endless-torment/1991-uprising-iraq-and-its-aftermath"
    },
    {
      "title": "UN Office of the Iraq Programme: About the Programme Fact Sheet",
      "url": "https://www.un.org/depts/oip/background/fact-sheet.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 1: Invasion – Insurgency – Civil War, 2003–2006",
      "url": "https://media.defense.gov/2023/May/05/2003216672/-1/-1/0/3667.PDF"
    },
    {
      "title": "Occupation Ends; Iraqis Take Charge of Country's Fate",
      "url": "https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2004/06/iraq-040628-afps02.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq: Elections, Government, and Constitution",
      "url": "https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20060911_RS21968_269b181b65a88a128e0447b374c09af5ce1e9421.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq 2005 Constitution – Constitute",
      "url": "https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iraq_2005"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq’s parliament approves new government headed by Mohammed Shia Al Sudani",
      "url": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/iraq/2022/10/27/iraqs-parliament-approves-new-government-headed-by-mohammed-shia-al-sudani/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Coordination Framework Nominates Ali al-Zaidi as Prime Minister",
      "url": "https://ina.iq/en/politics/48179-coordination-framework-nominates-ali-al-zaidi-as-prime-minister.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Role and powers | Kurdistan Parliament - Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.parliament.krd/english/about-parliament/role-and-powers/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Kurdistan Parliament Rules of Procedure",
      "url": "https://www.parliament.krd/media/1945/kurdistan_parliament_rules_of_procedure_english_pdf.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Kurdistan Parliament – Regional Presidency Law",
      "url": "https://legislation.krd/law-detail/?id=3253"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq strikes new deal with Kurds on oil exports and salary disputes",
      "url": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/07/17/iraq-strikes-new-deal-with-kurds-on-oil-exports-and-salary-disputes/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Country policy and information note: opposition to the government in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), Iraq, September 2026",
      "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/iraq-country-policy-and-information-notes/country-policy-and-information-note-opposition-to-the-government-in-the-kurdistan-region-of-iraq-kri-iraq-july-2023-accessible"
    },
    {
      "title": "وزير التخطيط يعلن النتائج النهائية للتعداد العام للسكان في العراق",
      "url": "https://ina.iq/ar/local/248754-46118793.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Basra Urban Profile",
      "url": "https://unhabitat.org/basra-urban-profile"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Initial Planning Framework for the Reconstruction of Mosul",
      "url": "https://unhabitat.org/the-initial-planning-framework-for-the-reconstruction-of-mosul"
    },
    {
      "title": "Housing and Slum Upgrading",
      "url": "https://unhabitat.org/iraq-housing-and-slum-upgrading"
    },
    {
      "title": "Wilting in the Kurdish Sun: The Hopes and Fears of Religious Minorities in Northern Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.uscirf.gov/publications/wilting-kurdish-sun-hopes-and-fears-religious-minorities-northern-iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "LAAF Iraq Final Report, July 2023",
      "url": "https://globalprotectioncluster.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/laaf_iraq_final_report_july_2023.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq | World Bank Group",
      "url": "https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/country/iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries",
      "url": "https://opec.org/speech-detail/173-2-april-2017.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "International — U.S. Energy Information Administration: Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/countries/IRQ/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq oil exports drop over 80% in March amid Hormuz disruption",
      "url": "https://www.rudaw.net/english/categories/economic/950395"
    },
    {
      "title": "Operation Inherent Resolve Quarterly Report to Congress, January 1, 2025–March 31, 2025",
      "url": "https://media.defense.gov/2025/May/01/2003702293/-1/-1/1/OIR_Q2_MAR2025_FINAL.PDF"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq records nearly $260 million deficit in January",
      "url": "https://www.rudaw.net/english/categories/opinion/954008"
    },
    {
      "title": "Baghdad to complete 2027 budget draft by September",
      "url": "https://www.shafaq.com/en/Economy/Baghdad-to-complete-2027-budget-draft-by-September"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq Business Newsletter – Q2 2026",
      "url": "https://irak.ahk.de/en/newsletters/newsletters/ahk-iraq-business-newsletter-q2-2026"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq — 2023 Investment Climate Statements",
      "url": "https://2021-2025.state.gov/reports/2023-investment-climate-statements/iraq/"
    },
    {
      "title": "World Development Indicators",
      "url": "https://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?country=IRQ&pe-=&series=&source=2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq Labour Force Survey 2021",
      "url": "https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/%40arabstates/%40ro-beirut/documents/publication/wcms_850359.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "FAO GIEWS Country Brief: The Republic of Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.fao.org/giews/countrybrief/country/IRQ/pdf/IRQ.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq's Labour Force",
      "url": "https://www.ilo.org/resource/iraqs-labour-force"
    },
    {
      "title": "New report identifies drivers of informality in Iraq’s labour market",
      "url": "https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/new-report-identifies-drivers-informality-iraq%E2%80%99s-labour-market"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq: 2025 Article IV Consultation—Press Release; Staff Report; and Informational Annex",
      "url": "https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/2025/183/article-A001-en.xml"
    },
    {
      "title": "National Conference Paves Pathways to Formalizing Iraq's Informal Economy",
      "url": "https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/national-conference-paves-pathways-formalizing-iraqs-informal-economy"
    },
    {
      "title": "World Bank Macro Poverty Outlook: Iraq",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099351204292542416/pdf/IDU-a4df2b7a-37ee-4089-8833-c55efab23beb.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq Launches Multidimensional Poverty Index Report",
      "url": "https://www.undp.org/iraq/press-releases/iraq-launches-multidimensional-poverty-index-report"
    },
    {
      "title": "Basrah Gas Company",
      "url": "https://www.shell.iq/about-us/projects-and-sites/basrahgascompany.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "GGIP in Iraq: TotalEnergies launches construction of an early gas treatment unit",
      "url": "https://totalenergies.com/system/files/documents/totalenergies_GGIP-iraq-TotalEnergies-launches-construction-early-gas-treatment-unit_2025_en.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "New US$900 million World Bank Financing to Improve Iraq’s Road Connectivity and Support Job Creation",
      "url": "https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2026/06/05/new-us-900-million-world-bank-financing-to-improve-iraq-s-road-connectivity-and-support-job-creation"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq: New US$930 Million Project to Extend and Modernize Railways, Promote Regional Connectivity and Boost Growth",
      "url": "https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2025/06/25/iraq-new-us-930-million-project-to-extend-and-modernize-railways-promote-regional-connectivity-and-boost-growth"
    },
    {
      "title": "World Bank Document: Iraq Railways Extension and Modernization Project",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099050325135513914/pdf/P507282-5d48ad1f-dfd8-4b36-9875-55b206701f34.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq Climate Investment Plan 2025",
      "url": "https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2025-07/en_cip_cip_climate_investment_plan_2025.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions Strategy of Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2025-09/nama_en.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Irak : TotalEnergies lance la construction des deux derniers grands volets du GGIP",
      "url": "https://totalenergies.com/newsroom/irak-totalenergies-lance-la-construction-des-deux-derniers-grands/?lang=fra"
    },
    {
      "title": "Energy Transition: From Policies to Actions in the Power Sector of Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.undp.org/iraq/publications/energy-transition-policies-actions-power-sector-iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "Climate-Responsive Economic Recovery: Post-pandemic Opportunities in Mashreq",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/869611630485230362/pdf/Climate-Responsive-Economic-Recovery-Post-pandemic-Opportunities-in-Mashreq.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Water Security and Climate Change: Insights from Country Climate and Development Reports",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099124511122431814/pdf/IDU-fa8a4c3a-fd8c-4810-9485-fb785b73d02d.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Landmark Agreement Sets in Motion Action to Restore Iraqs Environment as New Study Outlines Magnitude of Deterioration",
      "url": "https://www.unep.org/es/node/6361"
    },
    {
      "title": "Addressing land degradation is good for your health",
      "url": "https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/addressing-land-degradation-good-your-health"
    },
    {
      "title": "As land is degrading, sand storms wreak havoc on desert communities",
      "url": "https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/land-degrading-sand-storms-wreak-havoc-desert-communities"
    },
    {
      "title": "Crunch time for Iraqi marshlands",
      "url": "https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/crunch-time-iraqi-marshlands"
    },
    {
      "title": "UNEP Annual Report 2006",
      "url": "https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/761916/files/1014589-EN.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Support for environmental management of the Iraqi marshlands 2004-2009",
      "url": "https://www.unep.org/resources/report/support-environmental-management-iraqi-marshlands-2004-2009"
    },
    {
      "title": "Using vegetation indices for monitoring the spread of Nile Rose plant in the Tigris River within Wasit province, Iraq",
      "url": "https://agris.fao.org/search/es/records/65df78a20f3e94b9e5d8c2b4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq National Health Policy 2014–2023",
      "url": "https://extranet.who.int/cpcd/sites/default/files/public_file_repository/IRQ_Iraq_National-Health-Policy-English_2014-2023.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq crisis",
      "url": "https://www.who.int/emergencies/situations/iraq-crisis"
    },
    {
      "title": "Infectious disease outbreaks reported in the Eastern Mediterranean Region in 2022",
      "url": "https://www.emro.who.int/fr/pandemic-epidemic-diseases/information-resources/infectious-disease-outbreaks-reported-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-region-in-2022.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Infectious disease outbreaks reported in the Eastern Mediterranean Region in 2022",
      "url": "https://www.emro.who.int/pandemic-epidemic-diseases/information-resources/infectious-disease-outbreaks-reported-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-region-in-2022.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Yes! We can end TB!",
      "url": "https://www.emro.who.int/iraq/news/yes-we-can-end-tb.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq: Non-state actors in education",
      "url": "https://gem-report-education-profiles.unesco.org/node/862.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq: Global Education Monitoring Report",
      "url": "https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/2026-gem-report-country-case-studies/iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "Higher Education Announces Iraqi Ranking for Universities’ Results",
      "url": "https://mohesr.gov.iq/en/post/higher-education-announces-iraqi-ranking-for-universities%26rsquo%3B-results-2024-12-31-20"
    },
    {
      "title": "GAL Country Profiles — Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.uil.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/files/2022/11/gal_country_profiles_iraq.pdf?hub=90"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Back to Learning Campaign Builds a Brighter Future for the Children",
      "url": "https://www.unicef.org/iraq/stories/back-learning-campaign-builds-brighter-future-children"
    },
    {
      "title": "World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 8106",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/171291497886159518/pdf/WPS8106.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "World Bank assessment of Iraq’s fiscal policy and social protection",
      "url": "https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099756510102321216/pdf/IDU0e287b0b90c36804788085bf0a11c7abd8ae4.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Provision of services and hospitality during the Arba'in visitation - UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage",
      "url": "https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/provision-of-services-and-hospitality-during-the-arba-in-visitation-01474?RL=01474&lang=en"
    },
    {
      "title": "Revive the Spirit of Mosul",
      "url": "https://www.unesco.org/en/revive-mosul?hub=1067"
    },
    {
      "title": "Revive the Spirit of Mosul: Heritage",
      "url": "https://www.unesco.org/en/revive-mosul/heritage"
    },
    {
      "title": "Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art",
      "url": "https://resources.metmuseum.org/resources/metpublications/pdf/Masterpieces_from_the_Department_of_Islamic_Art_in_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iran's president slams the West over the war in Gaza and support for Israel",
      "url": "https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/world/2024/09/11/irans-new-president-travels-to-neighboring-iraq-on-his-first-trip-abroad/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq (09-101.1) – Strategic Framework Agreement for a Relationship of Friendship and Cooperation",
      "url": "https://2021-2025.state.gov/09-101-1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Statement by Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and General Ray Odierno: Passage by the Council of Representatives of the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Security Agreement",
      "url": "https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/nov/112432.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "NATO Mission Iraq",
      "url": "https://nato.int/en/what-we-do/operations-and-missions/nato-mission-iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "Joint Statement between the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister of Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-between-the-prime-minister-of-the-united-kingdom-and-the-prime-minister-of-iraq"
    },
    {
      "title": "Relations between Türkiye and Iraq",
      "url": "https://www.mfa.gov.tr/relations-between-turkiye-and-iraq.en.mfa"
    },
    {
      "title": "Joint Statement on the Fifth Meeting of High-Level Security Mechanism Between the Republic of Türkiye and the Republic of Iraq, 13 April 2025",
      "url": "https://www.mfa.gov.tr/turkiye-cumhuriyeti-ile-irak-cumhuriyeti-arasinda-gerceklestirilen-yuksek-duzeyli-guvenlik-mekanizmasi-v-toplantisina-iliskin-ortak-bildiri-13-nisan-2025.en.mfa"
    },
    {
      "title": "The battle against Islamic State",
      "url": "https://defenceweb.co.za/middle-east/middle-east-middle-east/the-battle-against-islamic-state/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Operation Inherent Resolve Report/Operation Pacific Eagle-Philippines Report to the United States Congress, October 1, 2017–December 31, 2017",
      "url": "https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2018-06/quarterly_oir_123117.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Country Reports on Terrorism 2016",
      "url": "https://2017-2021.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/crt_2016.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraqi PM Orders Iranian-allied Militias to Be Reined In",
      "url": "https://www.voanews.com/a/middle-east_iraqi-pm-orders-iranian-allied-militias-be-reined/6170932.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Iraq sets June 30 as deadline to bring arms under state control",
      "url": "https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq/iraq-sets-june-30-as-deadline-to-bring-arms-under-state-control/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Special Adviser Khan briefs Security Council on UNITAD Investigations: Evidence shows that ISIL attacks against the Yazidi community in Sinjar constitute genocide",
      "url": "https://iraq.un.org/en/126729-special-adviser-khan-briefs-security-council-unitad-investigations-evidence-shows-isil"
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}