Reuters, in a statement sent to Arab News, said it had not received any notification from the Iraqi authorities “regarding our license and are currently seeking clarification on the matter” “Reuters will continue to report on Iraq in a fair, independent and impartial way, as we do all around the world,” the statement added LONDON: Iraq temporarily revoked Reuters news agency’s license for a period of three months, after it published a story saying Iraq’s government was misreporting the true number of coronavirus cases. The news agency was also fined 25 million Iraqi dinars ($20,950), The Associated Press (AP) reported, quoting a statement posted on the official Iraqi Communication and Media Commission website, said. The suspension on Friday came after Reuters published a story on Thursday citing a health ministry official, a senior political official and “three doctors closely involved in the testing process” as saying Iraq has “thousands of confirmed COVID-19 cases,” many times more than the 772 it had reported at the time. The article said “Iraqi authorities have instructed medical staff not to speak to the media,” and that the actual number was somewhere between 3,000 and 9,000. Reuters, in a statement sent to Arab News, said it had not received any notification from the Iraqi authorities regarding its license and is “currently seeking clarification on the matter.” “We stand by our story of April 2, which was based on multiple, well-placed medical and political sources, and also fully represented the position of the Iraqi health ministry,” the statement said. “Reuters will continue to report on Iraq in a fair, independent and impartial way, as we do all around the world.” The official number of coronavirus cases in Iraq on Saturday stood at 878 cases.