“Iraq has paid Kuwait enormous amounts of compensation for its losses and we do not know of any country in the world that has paid such high sums,” Shahristani told reporters in Baghdad.
“The sum of money that Germany paid to France and Britain is less than what Iraq has paid to Kuwait, even though that was a world war and the losses were considerable.”
On April 13, Adnan Abdulsamad, head of the Kuwaiti parliament’s budgets committee, said the emirate had so far received $ 17.5 billion out of the $ 41.8 billion approved by a United Nations special compensation fund.
“Iraq cannot continue to make these payments and has made this known to the UN Security Council,” Shahristani said. “We call on our Kuwaiti brothers to work together with us to forget the past, which has cost our country more than our neighbours.”
Following World War I, the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to pay reparations of 132 billion gold marks (around $ 31 billion at the time) but Germany repeatedly argued for the amount to be reviewed and ceased payments after Hitler came to power in 1933.
After World War II, Germany was required to pay $ 315 million, equivalent to around $ 4.1 billion in current money after accounting for inflation.
Iraq is required to put five per cent of its oil revenues into a UN reparations fund, which has so far paid out $ 28.9 billion to claimants.
Since Saddam’s overthrow in the US-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has repeatedly appealed to Kuwait and other countries to waive tens of billions of dollars in compensation and debt payments.
