Iraq expands digital transit with Qatar agreement

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq signed an agreement with Qatar's GBI to market cross-border internet transit capacity through the Civilizations Road Project and received its first payment in foreign currency, Communications Minister Mustafa Sanad announced on Thursday.

Sanad said the agreement adopts the Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) model, a long-term telecommunications infrastructure framework, to lease strands of Iraq's fiber-optic network, marking the first time the country has used this system.

The project relies on a land corridor stretching from al-Faw in southern Iraq to Rabia near the Turkish border, linking data traffic from Asia and the Gulf to Europe through Turkiye. According to the minister, the route reduces latency compared with conventional submarine cables, strengthens Iraq's position as an international digital transit hub, and has already attracted requests from several Gulf countries over the past week to use the corridor.

The Communications Ministry launched the Civilizations Road Project into commercial operation in 2024 as Iraq's first internet transit network, a roughly 2,000-kilometer fiber-optic corridor linking the country with neighboring states through five border crossings: al-Faw, Safwan, al-Mundhiriya, Arar, and Rabia.

In March 2025, the ministry signed an agreement with Qatar's Ooredoo to establish Iraq's fourth submarine cable, and in May, Zain Omantel International announced a new telecommunications corridor linking the Gulf to Europe through Iraq.

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