In 1988 Iraq had a good telecommunications network of radio communication stations, radio relay links, and coaxial cables. Iraqi radio and television stations came under the government's Iraqi Broadcasting and Television Establishment, which was responsible to the Ministry of Culture and Information. The domestic service had one FM and nine AM stations with two program networks. The domestic service broadcast mainly in Arabic, but also in Kurdish, Turkoman, and Assyrian from Kirkuk. The short wave foreign service broadcast in Arabic, Azeri Turkish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Kurdish, Persian, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu. Television stations were located in the major cities, and they carried two program networks. In 1988 Iraq had approximately 972,000 television sets; the system was connected to both the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean systems of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) as well as to one Soviet Intersputnik satellite station. It also had coaxial cable and radio relays linking it to Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey. Iraq had an estimated 632,000 telephones in 1988.

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Source: U.S. Library of Congress