Iraq pays final Kuwait war reparations

Iraq has paid the final installment of $44 million to Kuwait, completing its total reparation payments to its neighbour, 30 years after its invasion sparked the Gulf War, Iraq’s central bank announced on Tuesday.

“Iraq has closed the file of the Kuwait war reparations, having paid the last of its dues,” Mozher Saleh, the prime minister’s economic adviser, was quoted as saying by the official Iraqi News Agency.

In total, Iraq has paid $52.4 billion in reparations, he said. “This is not a small amount,” he added. “The sum would have been enough to construct an electricity network that would have served Iraq for many years.”

“The payment of the last remaining installment of the State of Kuwait’s compensation amounting to 44 million US dollars has been completed, thus Iraq has completed the full payment of the compensation amounts approved by the United Nations Compensation Committee of the UN Security Council pursuant to Resolution no. 687 of the year 1991, with a total of 52.4 billion US dollars,” read a statement from the central bank.

The payments were suspended in 2014 when Daesh took over large swathes of Iraq but were resumed in 2018, following the group’s defeat.

Funds for the reparations come from a 5 percent tax levied on sales of Iraq’s petroleum and petroleum products.