Baghdad owes Iran USD 1.1 trillion as reparations of war: Iranian MP

Baghdad owes over one trillion dollars to Tehran as reparations for the Iran-Iraq war, a member of the Iranian Parliament said on Thursday.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Baghdad owes over one trillion dollars to Tehran as reparations for the Iran-Iraq war, a member of the Iranian Reformists political faction (Eslah Talaban) in the Islamic Republic’s Parliament (Majlis) said on Thursday.

“The government of Iraq, according to Article 6 of Resolution 598 [of the UN], owes USD 1.1 trillion as compensation for direct damages,” Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of the Majlis and representative of Tehran, wrote on Twitter.

The clause referenced, issued in 1987, had requested the then UN Secretary-General “to explore, in consultation with Iran and Iraq, the question of entrusting an impartial body with inquiring into responsibility for the conflict and to report to the Council as soon as possible.”

On Dec. 9, 1991, after the inquiry, UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar concluded that Iraq’s “explanations do not appear sufficient or acceptable to the international community.”

The attack “cannot be justified under the charter of the United Nations, any recognized rules and principles of international law, or any principles of international morality, and entails the responsibility for conflict,” Cuéllar added.

Iraq’s invasion of Iran initiated the eight-year conflict, a move inspired by fears of a possible Shia rebellion against the Ba’athist regime in response to the Iranian Revolution at the time.

The possibility of Iran coming out as the dominant state in the Persian Gulf was another factor in the Iraqi attack.

Ending after Iran accepted a UN-brokered ceasefire, the war cost over 100,000 lives on both sides not including the 50-182,000 Kurds during the al-Anfal Campaign.

Since then, encouraged by the UN announcement, the Iranian government has sought reparations from Iraq, with no luck so far.

“So far, the Iranian government has, in consideration of the bottlenecks in which the people of Iraq find themselves, delayed demands of reparation,” Sadeghi’s post continued.

He also lamented Iraq’s reaction to the US’ re-imposition of economic sanctions on Iran which had initially ended with the 2015 nuclear deal.

During his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Iraq would not react to the dispute between Iran and the United States as Washington re-imposed sanctions on the neighboring country.

Abadi described the sanctions on Iran as “a strategic mistake and incorrect,” adding Iraq “will abide by them to protect the interests of our people.”

“Now, however, the Iraqi Prime Minister, instead of compensations, accepts tyrannical sanctions on the people of Iran,” Sadeghi bemoaned.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany