Several members of the Kuwaiti parliament have rejected a plea from the Iraqi government to write-off tens of billions of dollars in debt and restitution relating to the 1991 Iraqi invasion, the newspaper Kuwait Times reported.
It is estimated that Iraqi owes Kuwait about $17 billion in repayment of loans made during the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war fought between 1980 and 1988. However, the larger share of the debt is what is still owed to Kuwait by the Iraqis relative to the first Gulf War in 1991. To date, Kuwait has received only $12 billion of the $45 billion that was approved by the United Nations Compensation Committee.
Since its establishment, the new Iraqi government has been soliciting governments, and Arab governments in particular, to forgive the massive debt remaining from the reign of Saddam Hussein. Washington has been supporting the Iraqis in this effort, pressuring both regional and international allies to forgo debts owed by Iraq. In 2004, former Secretary of State James A. Baker was able to convince several European countries to cancel eighty-percent of their respective Iraqi debts, and in 2007, Saudi Arabia became the first country in the region to cooperate. The Saudis cancelled eighty-per cent of Iraq’s $15 billion debt.