Qatar’s Ooredoo is working to establish a new data route from the Persian Gulf to Turkiye and Europe through Iraq. On 7th October 2026, its international connectivity arm, OFN, signed an agreement with Iraq’s iQ Networks to acquire several pairs of dark fibre across the country. The route is intended to connect with Ooredoo’s planned Fibre in Gulf (FIG) subsea cable system.

The agreement is part of Ooredoo’s wider commitment of more than $500 million to international cable and connectivity projects. That figure covers the broader programme; it is not the stated cost of the Iraq agreement alone. 

FIG is planned as a subsea loop connecting Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. Ooredoo says it will have a design capacity of up to 720 terabits per second across 24 fibre pairs, making it the largest subsea cable system planned for the Gulf Cooperation Council. Data landing in southern Iraq would travel north over iQ Networks’ fibre infrastructure, toward the Turkish border near Rabia, and then onward to Turkiye and Europe. The plan still requires regulatory and other approvals.

The deal involves dark fibre: installed cables that have not yet been equipped to transmit data. Customers add and manage their own transmission equipment, giving them flexibility to expand capacity and configure the network to their needs. That can appeal to cloud and data-centre operators, telecom companies and other large users of bandwidth. Ooredoo and iQ Networks are targeting demand from cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data centres.

A new route, and a more resilient network

The project’s main strategic value is the additional route it could offer between the Gulf and Europe.

Much of the world’s digital traffic travels through subsea cables, and dependence on a limited number of routes leaves networks exposed........

© Middle East Monitor