Iraq–United Kingdom relations
bilateral relations between Iraq and the United Kingdom
Iraq–United Kingdom relations are foreign relations between Iraq and the United Kingdom.
The current ambassador to Iraq is Stephen Hitchen.
1914–2003
The history of British–Iraqi relations date back to the creation of Iraq in 1920, when it was controlled by Great Britain; by establishing separate provinces from Mosul to Basra. In the 19th century Europeans (mostly the British) began to take an interest in exploring, surveying, spying and trading in Mesopotamia, as well as in navigating its rivers. By 1914 there was growing anxiety about the security of the Persian oilfields on the other side of the Persian Gulf, these were the fields that supplied the Royal Navy.
World War I
The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of Germany and immediately became an enemy of Britain and France. Four major Allied operations attacked the Ottoman holdings. The Gallipoli Campaign to control the Straits failed in 1915-1916. The first Mesopotamian campaign invading Iraq from India also failed. The second one captured Baghdad in 1917.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Iraq–United Kingdom relations” is bilateral relations between Iraq and the United Kingdom. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Iraq, United and Kingdom, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “bilateral relations between Iraq and the United Kingdom” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6068268. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1914, 2003, 1920 and 1915.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Iraq–United Kingdom relations” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.