ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi government wants to bring gun ownership under control and has allocated one billion Iraqi dinars (about $764,000) for each province to purchase unregistered weapons from citizens, an interior ministry official said on Sunday.
Ziyad Qaisi, spokesperson for the committee for the organization and limitation of weapons at the interior ministry, told Rudaw that the ministry has allocated two billion dinars for the capital Baghdad and one billion dinars for every other province, except the Kurdistan Region, to purchase weapons from the general population.
There are over eight million weapons in circulation in Iraq and the government has tried for years to bring the problem under control.
In 2021, the Iraqi government issued directives to register all firearms and buy them back from people in three stages. The first stage started in January and will run until the end of the year, during which small weapons are registered and licensed at 697 centers that have been established at police stations across all provinces of southern and central Iraq.
“So far, we have registered 3,000 personal firearms,” Qaisi said.
According to Qaisi, every Iraqi citizen has the right to own a gun, either a kalashnikov, a pistol, or a hunting rifle.
In the second stage, which began on May 1, the government began buying back medium-sized weapons. A committee has been formed to inspect the weapons being purchased and prices offered range from 3 million to 5.9 million dinars per firearm.
The third stage will see security forces searching for unlicensed weapons.
In 2018, Iraqi authorities ramped up efforts to monitor gun ownership by drafting strict new regulations on the buying and selling of firearms - the first of their kind in decades. The law required citizens wanting to purchase a gun to obtain official authorization and an identity card.
Nahro Mohammed contributed to this report
