ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraqi Communications Minister Mustafa Sanad on Tuesday announced that the country is set to ban the Israeli-developed Waze GPS navigation app by the end of December, accelerating a timetable that was initially set to prohibit the software's usage in 2027.

"We have decided to revoke our earlier decision to ban the Waze app at the start of 2027 and instead move the effective date to the end of this coming December," Sanad said in a statement on his Facebook account.

Founded as FreeMap Israel in 2006 and acquired by Google in 2013, Waze was developed by three entrepreneurs who had served in the Israeli military's Unit 8200, which is responsible for signals intelligence collection and cyberwarfare.

The platform says it is available in 50 languages and can be used "anywhere there is cellular/GPS reception."

Under the terms of Iraq's 2022 law on Criminalizing Normalization with the Zionist Entity, those who establish "any diplomatic, economic, political, military, security, cultural, or any other kind of relationship" with Israel may face life imprisonment or a death sentence, with the legislation having underpinned Baghdad's efforts to restrict ties with the state.

In 2017, Iran moved to block access to Waze in the country on account of its Israeli origins and potential counterintelligence risk, a fate that the messaging app Viber met three years prior on the same grounds.

Israel’s efforts to normalize ties with Arab nations across the Middle East and North Africa began with the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 to formalize commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and three Arab nations, which was part of a US-led initiative to promote long-term stability in the Middle East.

Under the accords, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Morocco, agreed to normalize ties, with other countries, including Saudi Arabia, engaging in indirect talks on the matter. However, Iraq has taken a firm stance against these efforts and maintained a staunch position in support of an independent Palestinian state.