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Iraq

June 26, 2026

Baghdad 10:56 pm

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A worker at a market for fuel oil and automotive fuel on March 17, 2026, in Erbil, Iraq.

Explainer

After UAE and Qatar, could Iraq be next to leave OPEC?

Iraq is seeking a higher production quota as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has slashed oil revenues and plunged the country into a fiscal crisis.

Krikor Der-Hagopian at the 9th Sulaimani Forum, in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, on April 16, 2025.

Iraq taps Krikor Der-Hagopian as first Armenian Christian ambassador to US

Baghdad’s pick of a US-educated Armenian Christian adviser as envoy to Washington underscores a bid to reset US-Iraq ties and broaden the country’s diplomatic profile.

Tom Barrack

Exclusive

Barrack heads to Iraq as US presses Baghdad on Iran-backed militias

US envoy Tom Barrack is due to meet with Iraq’s new prime minister and other top officials in Baghdad, where he will likely press US demands for Iran-backed Shiite militias be dismantled and disarmed.

Amberin Zaman

By Amberin Zaman

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Latest News

Culture

World Cup opens amid visa disputes for Iran, Iraq and Somalia

Members of the Iranian national soccer team including midfielder Alireza Jahanbakhsh (R) arrive at Tijuana International Airport on June 7, 2026, in Tijuana, Mexico.

Syria says Iraqi oil shipments surge as Damascus courts foreign energy investment

A long convoys of Iraqi diesel-laden tanker trucks line up along the highway Tartus-Baniyas highway as they wait to unload their cargo at the Baniyas port refinery on the Mediterranean Sea, on April 15, 2026.

Israel-Iran escalation grounds flights across parts of Middle East

An Airbus A321 airliner arrives at the Mehrabad international airport during the delivery of the first batch of planes to the Iranian state airline Iran Air in the capital Tehran on Jaunary 12, 2017. - The aircraft arrived as part of an order for 100 other Airbus planes with a list price of around $20 billion (19 billion euros) on December 22, placed after the lifting of international sanctions on the Islamic republic. It will be used for internal flights landed at Tehran's Mehrabad airport. (Photo by ATTA

Amberin Zaman

Chief Correspondent

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Jared Szuba

Defense and Security Correspondent

In Washington, DC, reporting on defense, national security, military

Beatrice Farhat

Associate Editor (Lebanon)

In Beirut, reporting on regional news, culture, conflict

Suadad al-Salhy

In Baghdad, reporting on politics and security

Lyse Mauvais

In Amman, reporting on humanitarian crises

Winthrop Rodgers

In Sulaymaniyah, reporting on Kurdish issues

Demonstrators hold Iranian flags during a protest on Sept. 15, 2018, against the torching of the Iranian Consulate and the Hashed al-Shaabi party (Popular Mobilisation) headquarters during recent protests in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

Iran-linked militia calls up thousands of volunteers to fight US forces

An IRGC-linked armed faction in Iraq has urged men across the country to take up arms against any US forces remaining after Dec. 31, claiming to have received tens of thousands of "calls" from citizens willing to help.

SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images

Iraq flies hundreds back from Belarus border as EU adds sanctions

Iraq has brought back over 400 of its citizens who chose repatriation after weeks stranded in dire conditions on the Belarus border and failed attempts to enter the EU.

Supporters of the pro-Iran Hashid al-Shaabi alliance burn a banner bearing a crossed portrait of the special representative of the UN secretary-general's Assistance Mission for Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

UN official speaks with Iraqi leaders to break post-election deadlock

Jeanine Antoinette Plasschaert, special representative of the secretary-general for Iraq, held talks with the head of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Qais al-Khazali, to settle the election results crisis.

Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraqi militia leader and Shiite Muslim cleric, gives a news conference in the central holy shrine city of Najaf, on Nov. 18, 2021.

Sadr calls for majority government, 'liquidation' of Iraqi militias

Sadr calls for forming majority government as the Iraqi President Barham Salih hosted a meeting with the prime minister and the judiciary head to discuss the current political deadlock and present initiatives for it.

SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images

Iraqi Kurdistan brings home migrants trapped at Belarus-Poland border

The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq said its constituents were lured into emigrating by criminal smugglers.

A member of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters, removes an Islamic State group flag in the town of Tabqa, about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa city, on April 30, 2017, as they advance in their battle for the group's de facto capital.

Attack on Syrian prison holding Iraqi Islamic State captives raises concerns

Local forces backed by coalition air support reportedly prevented an attack on a prison housing thousands of Islamic State operatives in northeastern Syria under Kurdish-led administration.

WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Iraq to repatriate citizens stranded at Belarus border

The Iraqi announcement came as the European Union said it would step up sanctions on the Belarusian government and some airlines.

A picture taken on Nov. 12, 2021 shows migrants in a camp on the Belarusian-Polish border in the Grodno region. - Hundreds of desperate migrants are trapped in freezing temperatures on the border and the presence of troops from both sides has raised fears of a confrontation.

Airlines suspend Belarus-bound travel for Middle East migrants

Turkish Airlines and Iraqi Airlines restricting flights to Minsk for citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Migrants at the Belarus-Poland border make fires to keep warm on Nov. 11, 2021.

Thousands of Iraqi, Syrian refugees shiver at Belarus-Poland border

Iraqi Yazidis, Syrian Kurds and others are trapped in miserable conditions on the border, caught in a dispute between Belarus and the European Union.

Iraq economy

Iraq expands border crossings with Saudi Arabia to boost trade

In the context of strengthening economic relations, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are diversifying their trade outlets, intending to increase trade exchange to more than $3 billion annually.

Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr delivers a statement in which he backed early elections overseen by the United Nations, in an extremely rare press conference outside his home in Iraq's holy city Najaf, on Feb. 10, 2021.

Iraq's Sadrist movement in talks on forming government

At a time when the Sadrist movement is seeking understandings with Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties to form a government, the forces rejecting the results of the elections are taking to the streets in protest against any Cabinet formation talks before the results issue is resolved.

A picture taken on Nov. 7, 2021, shows government buildings inside Baghdad's Green Zone across the Tigris River, following an overnight drone attack.

Russia, Turkey condemn assassination attempt on Iraqi prime minister

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived a drone attack on his Baghdad residence.