“Today, Iraq is moving towards a foreign policy based on establishing the best relations with our brothers, neighbors, and the international community and supporting the security and peace of the region as a common interest for all,” President Barham Salih said in a tweet following the UNSC decision removing Iraq from the required procedures set by the UN Charter’s Chapter Seven.
A unanimous vote was carried out on the recent resolution after Iraqi foreign minister on Tuesday addressed the council saying “the Iraqi government considers the fulfillment of its international obligations towards the international community and the sisterly State of Kuwait, as a major development that would enhance Iraq's relations with its regional and international surroundings, as well as the Iraqi-Kuwaiti historical relations.”
The UNSC’s measures, seen by Rudaw English, state “effective immediately, the government of Iraq is no longer required to deposit a percentage of the proceeds from export sales of petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas into the funds.”
The council’s decision comes after Iraq paid the final reparation installment to Kuwait in December.
The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) earlier this month announced that Baghdad had completed its payment of war reparations worth $52.4 billion to Kuwait.
The UNCC was set up in 1991 by the UN Security Council in the aftermath of the seven-month occupation of Kuwait by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The reparations body raised the money through a tax on Iraqi oil sales over the last 31 years. The percentage was originally set at 30 percent and was reduced over the years, most recently to 3 percent.
In 2013, the UNSC unanimously voted that the issue of missing Kuwaiti people and property should be dealt with under Chapter six of the UN Charter instead of Chapter seven. Chapter six urges countries to peacefully resolve any conflicts, while chapter seven allows the UNSC to authorize actions ranging from sanctions to military intervention.
The UNSC eased the sanctions on Iraq in resolution 1546 of the year 2004, where they decided that "prohibitions related to the sale or supply to Iraq of arms and related materiel under previous resolutions shall not apply to arms or related materiel required by the Government
of Iraq."
However, the resolution noted that it did not affect prohibitions on chemical and biological weapons, ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 km, nuclear weapons, and nuclear activities.
The UNCC received around 2.7 million claims at the time, valued at $352.5 billion, but approved the amount of $52.4, according to a UN press release. The report by the body added that the final payment was made on January 13, but the last report in Geneva by the UNCC was officially filed on February 9.
Iraq in 2014 halted payments to Kuwait due to the war against Islamic State (ISIS) only to resume four years later in 2018.
The completion of the reparation payments comes at an economically crucial time for Iraq, given the current political uncertainty. It is also crucial to the country’s economy as it seems to have been going through economic growth due to increasing oil prices.
A source from the Iraqi Central Bank in December told the country’s state newspaper that the bank’s reserves have increased from $51.9 to $64 billion "due to a rise in the oil markets.”
