Kuwait rejects US and Iraqi Council to forgive debts
Kuwait-Iraq, Politics, 9/29/2003

Kuwait's minister of information Muhammad Abu al-Hassan said that the issue of compensating damages resulting from the invasion of Iraq in 1990 is an "indisputable matter at the UN Security Council which had its say and submitted the matter to the compensations committee which approved the allotted sums, not only for Kuwait, but also for the damaged countries."

The statements of the Kuwaiti minister were quoted by the Kuwaiti al- Rai al-Am replying to the request made by the US administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer for Kuwait and other countries that claim damage by the Iraqi invasion (44 countries ), according to the UN Security Council resolution, to reconsider their demands for compensations from Iraq.

Abu al-Hassan said that "it is not easy to ask these countries to give up money owed as compensation. These sums are not for countries they are for individuals and there are 99% of the individuals who arranged their situations on this ground, therefore it is difficult for the UN Security Council and the Iraqi government to ask individuals to give up their due sums."

The paper described Abu al-Hassan's statements as "an avoidance to clearly reject the American request." It said that several parliamentarians found that Bremer's call to " reconsider" these compensations reveals "political ignorance and lack of recognition of the international law."

The paper said that parliamentarians, members of the Ummah council (parliament ) considered this call as an attempt to pressure Kuwait to give up its rights." Bremer said last Friday that among Iraq's debts which total 200 billion dollars are 98 billion as compensations for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, calling on the two countries to drop these debts.

Asked whether, given Iraq's weakened economic condition, there was consideration of asking Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to accept a delay in reparations payments from Iraq stemming from the 1990-91 Gulf war, Bremer said "I think there needs to be a very serious look at this whole reparations issue."

"I have to say that it is curious to me," he said, "to have a country whose per capita income, GDP, is about $800 ... that a county that poor should be required to pay reparations to countries whose per capita GDP is a factor of 10 times that for a war which all of the Iraqis who are now in government opposed," he said. He added that the Iraqi Governing Council "feels very strongly about that."

Previous Stories:
  Chalabi confers with the Amir of Kuwait   (9/22/2003)
  Kuwait backs Iraq's representation at Arab foreign ministers meeting   (9/1/2003)
  Identification of Kuwaiti remains in Iraq brings closure to families, Annan   (8/22/2003)

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