Iraq and Kuwait are considering a plan to pay the war reparations which Baghdad still owes its neighbour into a fund for Iraqi investments, the UN’s envoy told AFP on Sunday. Iraq, which pays five percent of its oil revenues into a UN reparations fund, is required to hand over another $18 billion (13.92 billion euros), the bulk of it to Kuwait.
Iraqi leaders have frequently called for oil-rich Kuwait to review its demands for payment. “There is a proposal on the table that the amount still outstanding is reinvested in Iraq,” Martin Kobler, the UN chief’s special representative to Baghdad, said in an interview.
“So that this is in a kind of trust fund …(and) the (UN) resolution is fulfilled, however the money is reinvested in Iraq for the benefit of the people of Iraq.” He continued: “I think this is a good proposal and the two parties are negotiating this.”
Iraq has so far paid out $34.3 billion to claimants for ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, of which around $25 billion has gone to Kuwait.
It would heal the wounds between them. Kuwait can afford to be forgiving and generous.
They have to live beside Iraq for a very long time.
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