​Iraq has been experiencing an ongoing water crisis for years and has largely placed the blame on its neighbour Iran for aggravating its water conditions and supply.

​An Iraqi minister has accused Iran of increasing the salinity of the Shatt Al-Arab waters in a scathing statement, according to Arabi21, amid a series of escalating water-related tensions between the two neighbours.

Minister of Water Resources Mahdi Rashid Al-Hamdani said high levels of salt found the tide of the river’s waters are a consequence of Iran allegedly cutting off all tributaries that flow into the body of water, which is mostly located in the Basra governorate, in the country’s south.
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He made the statement following an inspection of ongoing work taking place during the first phase of the Basra pipeline project.

The Iraqi Ministry of Electricity says it is in talks with Iran to increase natural gas imports from its eastern neighbor.

According to Ahmed al-Ebadi, a ministry spokesman, the volume of gas imports from Iran is currently at 43 million cubic meters a day, while Iraq requires about 60 mcm of gas, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Iraq's electricity production has increased by 22% compared to the previous year, he added. 
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However, as new power plants are set to be launched in Iraq in the coming months and they rely on natural gas as feedstock, the Arab country needs to increase its gas purchases from Iran. 


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“When people can’t change the political system through legal means it pushes them toward violence.”

​What Iraq needs is good leaders, not another election, Michael Knights, a researcher at Washington Institute for Near Eastern Politics told Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday.   

“Iraq is over a crossroads; we have something a little bit different happening down in Baghdad,” said Knights. “We had a coup at the start of the year when the Shiite Coordination Framework took over the judiciary and now, we have a coup of a different kind when Muqtada al-Sadr takes over the parliament; so, we are in a deadlock again and we might be heading to elections.”
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Knights pointed out that elections can’t necessarily save Iraq, emphasizing that “what Iraq needs is good leaders and that will take some time to be able to come through any set of elections because right now good leaders are not allowed to lead the political parties in Iraq.”

The country is in the grip of corrupt and self-serving elites. We need a new constitution to break its grip.

​When the Iraqi Parliamentary elections of October 2021 recorded the lowest-ever voter turnout in the post-2003 era, it was clear the incoming government would face a legitimacy crisis. Almost 10 months later, Iraq’s political elites are no closer to forming a government or selecting a new head of state. Instead, the latest developments from July 27-31, 2022 have witnessed protestors storm Iraq’s so-called safe Green Zone before occupying the nation’s parliament. This is proof that Iraq’s political system is in an irreversible crisis.
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These events are the latest part of a crisis after Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful cleric and political leader whose party won the most seats in Iraq’s parliament, withdrew his MP’s from the political process. These developments have not occurred in a vacuum and are symptomatic of a failed political system that may finally be about to collapse, however long it is taking to die.

The roots of the crisis

The latest events should not shock or surprise us, given the numerous attempts from the parties in Iraq’s political framework to delegitimise the elections and threaten violence against opponents. These include rocket attacks on a Kurdish party in Erbil and a formal attempt to assassinate the current Iraqi PM, Mustafa Khadhimi. It should also be noted that post-2003, the Iraqi elites have a history of publicly being at war with each other and then later forming consensuses and governing blocs. So anything is possible in Iraq, even when hostile escalations are at their height.
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"They discussed the current political situation in the country, including the formation of the new government."

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), met with the Secretary-General of the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq movement, Qais Al-Khazali, on Tuesday.

​Khazali has its own armed group, which is part of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). He is seen as closely aligned with Iran and was involved in past attacks on US troops in Iraq.
Hennis-Plasschaert previously met him last November to discuss the results of October's parliamentary elections.

​"They discussed the current political situation in the country, including the formation of the new government," UNAMI tweeted on Wednesday.

The Iraqi judiciary yesterday launched a probe into leaked voice recordings reportedly attributed to former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malik in which he is said to have sharply criticised the head of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada Al-Sadr, Anadolu reported.

According to the news wire, the Information Centre of the Supreme Judicial Council had received a request from the Public Prosecution to take legal measures.

In the purported recordings, Al-Maliki is heard threatening violence against Shia religious leader Al-Sadr, as well as the President of Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani.
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He is also heard in the recordings describing the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a Shia militia movement, as "cowards."

The State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) announced that the price rate of crude oil exported to Jordan rose to more than 107 USD per barrel during June, according to preliminary statistics issued by SOMO.

SOMO data mentioned that the total oil exports to Jordan during the month of June reached 299.760 barrels, with a daily rate of 10 thousand barrels.
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SOMO explained that the average price of a barrel sold to Jordan is 107.70 USD. It added that the revenues from oil exports to Jordan during one month exceeded 32.28 million USD.

In an interview with Mehr, Ruhollah Gholami said that 886,000 tons of goods were exported to Iraq through this border in the first quarter of this year.

This amount has increased by 100% in terms of weight and 73% in dollar value compared to the same period last year, he added.

He underlined that Ilam province customs has won first place this year out of 12 customs bordering Iraq.
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The Mehran International Border has generated jobs for over 2,000 Iranians working currently in the place, he pointed out.


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A Polish Army deserter who sought asylum in Belarus, where he often appeared in the media making critical statements about the government in Warsaw, has been found dead in Minsk.

The Investigative Committee of Belarus said on March 17 that Emil Czeczko was found hanged in his apartment in the Belarusian capital, adding that they were looking into several motives, including suicide or murder.

Belarusian authorities said in mid-December that the 25-year-old Polish soldier defected and asked for political asylum in the wake of the crisis along the Polish-Belarusian border when tens of thousands of illegal migrants, mostly from the Middle East, tried to force their way into the European Union.

Czeczko had been shown on Belarusian state television several times since then, criticizing the Polish government and saying that Polish border guards had shot dead hundreds of migrants, a claim that has never been proven or confirmed either by Polish officials or international experts.

Polish soldier Emil Czeczko, who was serving on the border under orders to prevent migrants from crossing from Belarus into Poland, fled through a barbed wire fence on Dec. 17 and appealed for asylum in Belarus. In a television interview, Czeczko said he fled because Polish troops had shot and killed some of the migrants. He said he opposed this policy.

​Czeczko said that special border troops forced him and other regular Polish soldiers to take part in the executions. He also told BelTa TV that two Polish volunteers, civilians who had come to aid the migrants, were killed when they tried to intervene. (tinyurl.com/29zmtkau)

The migrants fly to Minsk, Belarus, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, in an attempt to migrate to the European Union because their families cannot survive at home. Scenes of Polish troops setting up barbed wire and firing water cannons to stop them were broadcast on television worldwide starting in mid-November. 
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Czeczko’s accusation that Polish forces used lethal force against the migrants sparked demands from Belarusian and Russian government representatives for an international investigation by the United Nations or human rights organizations related to his charges. They accused the Polish government of refusing to answer questions about the border incidents.