ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s interior ministry said Friday that crime rates have seen a marked decrease in the past two years, with the country recording lower rates than some European counterparts.

Interior ministry spokesperson Miqdad Miri attributed the improvement to the ministry’s “significant efforts across various sectors during 2024-2025,” saying that what they have accomplished across the two years is equivalent to “10-12 years” worth of work.

“The statistics for the past two years have shown a clear decrease [in crime rate] and are now registering even lower levels,” said Miri. “We were in Europe a few days ago, and the security situation in Iraq, in terms of crime rates, is much better than in some European countries,” the ministry mouthpiece told Iraqi state media.

Iraq’s security forces in October were able to score the top spot in two distinct international competitions. The country’s Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) announced earlier in the month that its teams had bested 38 military teams from 20 countries to win the Annual Warriors Competition held in Jordan.

The CTS’ triumph was followed only a week later by another major first-place prize for the Iraqi interior ministry, after the Iraqi ministry won the 39th Arab Conference of the Heads of Anti-Narcotics Agencies was held earlier in the week in Tunisia, on both Arab and international levels.

Speaking to the ministry’s accomplishments in the counter-narcotic space, Miri said that Iraq’s efforts “have reached their best state both internationally and domestically, with significant and unprecedented accomplishments,” asserting that drug use in Iraq is in decline, and the country is “now much better than many other countries in this regard."

The Iraqi interior ministry in July 2025 announced a 13 percent drop in crime rates in the first half of the year, in comparison to the same timeframe the previous year.