IRAQ-UNITED NATIONS: Baghdad Moves will Affect Sanctions Debate

LONDON, Nov 12 (IPS) - When the United Nations Security Council discusses the issue of renewing sanctions against Iraq on Monday for another 60 days -- it will face an altered situation.

Unlike at the time of the last debate, Baghdad has unconditionally recognised Kuwait's territorial integrity and political independence.

It also accepts the Kuwait-Iraqi border as demarcated by the United Nations Boundary Commission and adopted by the Security Council Resolution 833.

Russia has been instrumental in bringing about this change. It was during the three-day visit of its foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrov, to Baghdad last week that Iraq's national assembly decided to recognise Kuwait's independence and new boundaries -- a move endorsed by the country's Revolutionary Command Council (RCC).

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has taken this step on the clear understanding that Russia will now actively lobby for the easing of four-year-old United Nations sanctions against Iraq.

Over the years the former Soviet Union became almost the sole supplier of military hardware to Iraq. The two states signed a friendship and cooperation treaty in 1972, agreeing among other things to develop cooperation in the strengthening of their military capacity.

Soviet oil experts enabled Iraq to develop its petroleum industry to the degree that Baghdad ended its reliance on Western oil companies.

It became the first Arab company to nationalise a Western-oil corporation -- the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1972.

In Russia, today besides oil and gas the only other industry that can earn it badly foreign exchange is that of arms manufacturing.

With weapons exports to such countries as Cuba, India, North Korea and Ethiopia lost since the early 1990s, the military factories in Russia are looking desperately for foreign buyers. Iraq figures prominently among potential clients.

Then there is Baghdad's debt to Moscow. It is estimated that Iraq owes Russia eight to 10 billion dollars. Iraq can only start repaying some of it after it has resumed it oil shipments, which ceased in August 1990 when Iraq and occupied Kuwait.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service