Family photo: Participants in the Third Expanded Ministerial

Conference of the Neighboring Countries of Iraq, April 22.

Novosti, Russia

For Fear of Iran, Arabs Keep Iraq at Arm's Length

"It is Iran's influence on the new Iraqi Government which is making its Sunni-led Arab neighbors so reluctant to develop new ties and cancel its debts."

By political commentator Maria Appakova

Translated By Igor Medvedev

April 23, 2008

Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)

MOSCOW: For some reason, the outcome of the Third Expanded Ministerial Conference of the Neighboring Countries of Iraq, in Kuwait City on April 22, which was designed to combine the efforts of countries interested in stabilizing Iraq, has instead created a sense of unease.

The opening speech by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the final communiqué released by the conference raises the question of who needs Iraq more - its neighbors or the West (and Russia, for that matter).

The Kuwait conference was already the third event of its kind in the past year. The first meeting of Iraq's neighbors, with the participation of other concerned nations, was held in May 2007 in Egypt; the second, in November in Turkey. And in that intervening year, very little of the underlying intrigue in regard to the U.S.-Iran standoff has changed, nor has the agenda of these meetings - discussing the possibility of writing off Iraq's debts to other Arab countries and the reopening of their embassies in Baghdad.

In his speech, Nouri al-Maliki appealed to creditor countries to forgive Baghdad's debts - a legacy of the government of Saddam Hussein. And he asked Arab countries to re-open their embassies in Baghdad.

According to Maliki, it's difficult to understand why they have yet to restore diplomatic relations with Iraq, while many other countries have reopened embassies in Baghdad despite ongoing difficulties in the security sphere. With regard to Arab countries, they seem to be biding their time - Saudi Arabia promised to reopen its embassy a year ago, but still hasn’t implemented its intentions. Now Kuwait and Bahrain are making vague promises, careful not to mention specific dates.

On the one hand, one can understand these Arab countries. The first attempts some of them made to reopen embassies in Baghdad ended tragically - in August 2003, during a terrorist attack mounted against Jordan's diplomatic mission, 17 people were killed. In 2005, several Algerian and Egyptian diplomats were abducted and killed. And then, for example, there was the murder of Russian Embassy staff in 2006, although this was not used as a pretext to close the mission.

Granted, security is a sensitive issue. But what prevents Arab countries - and these countries are not poor - from easing Baghdad's debt burden?

Over the past three years, $66.5 billion of Iraq's $120 billion debt burden has been forgiven. Along with Russia's $12 billion in debt relief, the Club waived a total of $42.3 billion, while non-Paris Club members cancelled another $8.2 billion under the same conditions as the Club. Commercial creditors relieved Iraq of $16 billion. Of the remaining amount - between $56.6 and $79.9 billion - about half is owed to the nations of the Arab Gulf, which seem in no hurry to help.

[Editor's Note: The Paris Club is an informal group of financial officials from 19 of the world's richest countries. It provides financial services like debt restructuring, debt relief, and debt cancellation to indebted countries and their creditors. It meets every six weeks at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Industry in Paris .]

And here, too, one can understand their reasons. The damage done to many of them during the years of the Saddam Hussein regime was simply too great, despite the fact that today, Iraq is ruled by a different regime. This was demonstrated by the final communiqué issued at the Kuwait conference. Five years after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, the participants condemned the crimes of the former regime against the peoples of Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. One would have though that this page would have been turned long ago.

However, Iran stated in the communiqué that relations with Iraq during the dark past would not prevent it from developing new relations with Baghdad. And it is here that we see the true cause of Arab reluctance. It is Iran's influence on the new Iraqi Government, which largely represents the Shiite community, which is making the Sunni-led governments of its Arab neighbors so reluctant to develop new ties and cancel its debts.

Moreover, we shouldn’t forget that a rebuilt Iraq would present strong and serious competition to its neighbors on the oil market; not to mention that a stabilization of the situation in Iraq could significantly reduce the price of "black gold." And if the West, Russia and most Asian countries anticipate a stabilized Iraq to mean billion-dollar contracts and geo-strategic advantages, its Arab neighbors see an equation with many unknowns. It seems that Iraq's neighbors have yet to develop a policy toward Iraq that will enable them to win - and not to lose.

Nevertheless, the meeting's final communiqué contained some quite important words spoken in support of al-Maliki's government.

The Iraqi prime minister managed to extract the consent of Kuwait to discuss the possibility of revising the amount of compensation that Baghdad was obliged to pay the Emirate in the wake of the 1990-1991 Gulf War WATCH . A final resolution of the question of the amount of compensation will be made at the U.N., but at least Kuwait is ready for dialogue. And by the way, it was also symbolic that the conference was held on the territory of Kuwait, one of the countries that was most affected by the regime of Saddam Hussein.

So one can say that the process of reconciliation between Iraq and its Arab neighbors is under way. The only question is when words will be turned into deeds - and the most striking indicator of this will be decisions on exactly these issues - debt and the reopening of embassies. Until we something changes, the question of how much effective support Iraq can expect from its neighbors will remain unanswered.

Meanwhile Russia, which is closely monitoring the Iraq situation, is rather optimistic in this regard. 

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who participated in the Kuwait conference, gave a very positive evaluation of the performance of previous working groups on security, energy and refugees at the prior meetings in Egypt and Turkey. "These groups focus on specific issues. It seems that there has been a reduction in the flow of militants into Iraq, which is due in large part to the efforts of the security working group. On the whole, working the groups' efforts are bearing fruit, and this reflects on the important role being played by Iraq's neighbors," the Russian minister said in Kuwait.

Russia was especially pleased with the decisions of the energy working group, which registered an awareness of the need for early implementation of all existing agreements with Iraq's foreign partners. Lavrov said in an interview with Russian reporters that Russia was ready to actively participate in the work of this group, just as it is the efforts of the security working group.

It seems that the situation is improving for Russian companies in Iraq. According to Lavrov, the Iraqi leadership has energetically invited Russian enterprises to work in Iraq and is ready to help resolve any difficulties Russians encounter. Lavrov stressed that the Iraqi leadership praised the countries in the region and for helping alleviate Iraq's external debt problem and Russian energy companies for helping to restore Iraq's energy infrastructure, despite the continuing instability in the country.

Moscow's interest in the stabilization Iraq is obvious and its assistance to that country is bringing dividends; as have similar actions by Western and Asian nations. But what will persuade Iraq's neighbors to help it out of its crisis? What will they get in return? Today, these are the central questions around which Iraqi security depends.

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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US April 28, 8:48pm]