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Kuwait MPs reject call to drop Iraq debt demands
Jordan Times
Monday, September 29, 2003
KUWAIT (Reuters) — Kuwaiti parliamentarians reacted angrily to a US suggestion the oil-rich emirate drop demands for billions of dollars in war reparations owed by former foe Iraq, newpapers said on Sunday.
US civil administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer said on Friday that out of Iraq's total debt of $200 billion, Baghdad owed $98 billion in reparations to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for losses during the 1990-91 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the Gulf War.
“This is some kind of (US) pressure on Kuwait .. the issue of the reparations is something that concerns the impacted countries and the United Nations,” said MP Yousef Al Zalzalah in remarks carried by Al Watan daily on Sunday.
“Demanding that Kuwait of its own accord give up its rights is something unacceptable because the reparations are part of the big losses of the tyrannical (Iraqi) invasion.”
Bremer said “it is curious to me to have a country whose (annual) per capita income GDP is about $800 ... pay reparations to countries whose per-capita GDP is a factor of 10 times that,” for a war which all Iraqis now in power opposed.
Saddam's forces invaded Kuwait in 1990 and were driven out by US-led multinational coalition in 1991. Iraq also launched missiles into Saudi territory. Baghdad subsequently agreed to pay compensation for damage it caused, and some revenue from Iraq's UN oil-for-food deal went for payment of reparations.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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