BAGHDAD: Iraq has completed compensation payment of US$52.4 billion to individuals, companies and governments who proved that they had suffered damages due to its invasion in Kuwait in 1990, United Nations Compensation Committee said Wednesday.
National Iraqi News Agency (NINA) said this citing a Reuters report.
“The Compensation Committee, which was formed by the Security Council after the seven-month Iraqi occupation and the defeat of President Saddam Hussein’s forces, led by the United States in the Second Gulf War, has received a portion of the proceeds from oil sales, while the percentage varied over the thirty years and was recently three per cent”.
In total, the Compensation Commission received about 2.7 million compensation requests, worth US$352.5 billion, the report said.
But the committee approved 1.5 million applications that met the required conditions, and their owners received US$52.4 million. The value of the largest claim approved by the committee for compensation amounted to US$14.7 billion for the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation for the damages it sustained after Iraqi forces set fire to oil wells.
NINA reported that payments were suspended between October 2014 and April 2018, due to the government’s security and budgetary problems during its fight against ISIS.
The Geneva-based Compensation Committee said, in a statement after a closed meeting of its Board of Directors: With the final payment of compensation on January 13, 2022, all compensation approved by the Committee has now been paid in full.
The committee added: “The government of Iraq has fulfilled its international obligations to compensate all applicants whom the committee agreed to compensate for the losses and damages they sustained as a direct result of Iraq’s illegal invasion of Kuwait.”
The US ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Bathsheba Crocker, said on her Twitter page: “We commend Iraq for completing the payments for all applications submitted by the United Nations Compensation Commission... It is a historic achievement.”
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