Iraq is looking forward to a development leap after turning the page on Kuwait’s compensation

Iraq is looking forward to a development leap after turning the page on Kuwait’s compensation

12-14-2022

The Central Bank of Iraq announced , on Monday, December 12, that it had received the remaining amount in the Kuwait Compensation Fund , at a value of seven million and 946 thousand and 316 US dollars, and it was returned after paying the full compensation.

A bank statement quoted an authorized source as saying, “The amount was returned after auditing the accounts according to Security Council Resolution No. (2621) for the year (2022) concerned with ending the file of compensation resulting from the invasion of the former Iraqi regime of the State of Kuwait.”

The statement indicated that “Iraq revealed in 2021 that it had terminated all necessary banking arrangements with the US Federal Reserve Bank to stop the automatic deduction of Kuwait’s compensation from Iraqi crude oil export revenues, after paying the full remaining amount of compensation.”

In February 2022, Mesopotamia paid the last payment of compensation related to its invasion of Kuwait during the rule of former regime President Saddam Hussein in 1990.

Iraqi governments have paid total compensation of $52 billion to individuals, companies and governments who have been able to prove that they suffered damages as a result of the invasion, according to the United Nations Compensation Commission, which oversaw the process.

In addition to the state budget

Iraqi specialists indicated that the compensation file was costing the country between six to seven million dollars a day, and that with the end of this harsh chapter, the value of these funds from Iraq’s current exports, which amount to more than two billion dollars annually, will be added to the country’s budget and fill a sufficient expenditure section. To build an electricity network system that will revive Iraq for many years.

Professor of International Economics, Nawar Al-Saadi, says, “This reckless war was borne by the people of Iraq, and the closure of the Kuwaiti compensation file is a new page in the country’s economic history, but we hope as Iraqis that these funds that were deducted from the Iraqi budget will go to development, especially investment projects that It occupies the labor and productive forces, but so far there is no serious vision in this, although the government’s directions in the past year are to establish a sovereign fund in which the three percent that used to go to Kuwait will be deposited, to be invested at home and abroad and be a kind of buffer against the international crises that It came to Iraq as one of the rentier states, but unfortunately that did not happen.

He added, “We were expecting a resolution from the UN Security Council at the beginning of this year to remove Iraq from the problems of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter and to get rid of more than 40 resolutions imposed on it due to the Kuwait war, which completely shackled its economy for decades until the present time, but I am surprised.” From the behavior of the Council, so far it has not taken the matter seriously, although getting rid of Article VII opens up great opportunities for Iraq to integrate into the global economy.

And he continued, “The isolation in which the Iraqi economy lives is very large, and the world’s planes still do not reach Baghdad Airport except from some neighboring countries, and it is part of the blockade that still considers Iraq a war zone with all that constitutes insurance and shipping costs and delays the transfer of technology and dealing with progress.” the economist.”

new relationships

The Iraqi researcher, Saleh Lafta, says, “Handing over the remaining amount of compensation to Kuwait closes a dark page in the history of Iraq caused by Saddam Hussein’s regime, by immersing the country in wars and lost adventures that bear the consequences of the people, just as the State of Kuwait bore the unjust invasion of its lands.”

And he continued, “Kuwait was supposed to forgive those debts, because Iraq as a state and as a people had no hand in those adventures, and after the fall of the previous regime that caused the destruction, Kuwait could express its forgetfulness of the past and initiate in good faith not to demand those compensations, but Iraq continued to pay the money.” Which he was in great need to employ in reconstruction,” adding, “In any case, he paid the full compensation, and the two countries must move forward in new relations based on good neighborliness and common ties between them and forgetting the painful past, for like what Kuwait was damaged due to the invasion, Iraq suffered double damage because of those policies.” “.

Financing investment projects

For his part, the economic researcher, Bassam Raad, explained that with the completion of the audit of the accounts and the Central Bank of Iraq receiving the remaining amount in the Gulf War II Compensation Fund, all belongings will be liquidated for the account of the United Nations Compensation Committee, and the financial side of this fund will be closed permanently.

And he continued, “A bleak economic page has been turned, and it began after the issuance of Security Council Resolution No. 986 in 1995, when it deducted 30 percent of the value of every barrel of Iraqi oil exported under the oil-for-food program, but this percentage was reduced to five percent after 2003.” Then, to three percent in 2020, until the compensation file was finally closed after Security Council Resolution No. 2621 of 2022 was issued.

And Raad demanded that this percentage of the deductions, after returning to the Iraqi economy cycle, go towards financing income-generating investment projects in order to maximize the value added to them.

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