For a Turkish document bound for Iraq the apostille is not an option: Iraq has no row in the HCCH status table, and no other treaty between Türkiye and Iraq removes legalisation. One error to avoid is an apostille: a document apostilled at the kaymakamlık, the district governor’s office, is not processed by the Legalisation Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This page sets out the correct order, the reason for that order, and the way an Iraqi document reaches Türkiye.
Why an apostille has no place on an Iraqi file
An apostille is a certificate recognised only among the states in the Convention’s status table. Iraq has no row in the HCCH table, so an Iraqi authority is under no obligation to recognise an apostille. The information sheet of the Legalisation Unit of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is explicit on this point: a document that has been apostilled cannot be legalised by the Ministry. An apostilled document therefore cannot be fed into the Iraqi chain. Iraq is absent from the HCCH list of Members as well, so even the membership question does not arise.
Five links in strict order
The chain opens with translation: the document is translated into the language the Iraqi office asks for by a yeminli tercüman (a sworn translator whose oath is recorded at a Turkish notary), and the translation is certified by that notary. The second link is the governor: the valilik (provincial governor’s office) or the district governor’s office of the place where the document was issued certifies the notary’s signature; this is an ordinary certification, not an apostille. This place rule comes from the undated information sheet of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; whether the 2024 amendment of article 199 of the Notaries Law also covers this certification was not verified in this site’s survey. The third link is the Legalisation Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which certifies the governor’s signature. The last link is the Iraqi mission in Türkiye; that step is not described in the Ministry’s sheet and follows from the requirements of the destination. The links cannot change places, since each one attests the signature of the one before it.
An apostille put on by mistake
A district governor’s office may have placed an apostille even though the holder said “Iraq”; whether a certificate, once placed, can be withdrawn is a question on which this site’s survey found no official source. What the Ministry’s information sheet does say is narrower: a document carrying an apostille is not processed by the Legalisation Unit, so the apostilled copy itself cannot continue on the Iraqi route. How the holder proceeds from there is a question for the issuing office and the receiving Iraqi institution.
An Iraqi document arriving in Türkiye
A document issued in Iraq, a diploma, a marriage record or a power of attorney for instance, reaches Türkiye in one of two ways. It is legalised at the Turkish mission in Iraq, or it is legalised at the Iraqi mission in Türkiye and that legalisation is then certified at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs if the mission is in Ankara, or at the provincial governor’s office if the mission is in another province. The choice depends on where the document is: the first way is shorter while the document is still in Iraq, the second once it has arrived in Türkiye. The legalised document is presented to the Turkish institution with a Turkish translation certified by a notary.
Iraqi mission procedure: not surveyed
The legalisation procedure of the Iraqi mission, the documents it asks for, its processing time and its fee were not surveyed on this site; that information comes from the mission itself. Whether Iraqi authorities accept an Arabic translation made in Türkiye, or prefer a translation made in Iraq, was not verified either.
Arabic translation as the opening link
The uncertainty about the mission does not move the translation’s place in the chain: if the translation is made in Türkiye it is always the first link, because the certifications of the governor’s office, the Ministry and the mission are stacked on the notary’s certification of the translation. A translation added afterwards leaves the earlier certifications attached to an untranslated document, and the chain has to be built again.