The first Moscow visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will certainly not be easy, but could also help to a breakthrough.
The economic and military cooperation is the goal of Malikis talks with President Dmitri Medvedev and his counterpart Vladimir Putin on 10 April.
The spokesman for the Iraqi government, Ali al-Dabbagh, indicated that the foreign, defense and the current energy minister and a delegation of the Iraqi oil ministry in Moscow accompany Maliki.
On Saturday, the Iraqi Prime President Hotel in Moscow RIA Novosti an organized press conference.
The overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003 marked the beginning of a new history of Iraq and new relations with Russia. It is known that the new Iraqi leadership in many Russian politicians and political scientists of the “old guard”, especially for representatives of the Communist and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, met with sharp criticism on and on “Bush’s puppet” was stamped on.
In contrast to them contained the Kremlin such clichés – on the contrary, he expressed the desire for cooperation with Iraq’s new government.
As the then Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2003 the head of the Iraqi Governing Council, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, received in the Kremlin, he promised him 80 percent of Iraqi debt, amounting to ten billion write off, and solved this promise.
In 2006, the debt, but the answer was not the hoped Moscow advantages. Klar was in August 2007 during the Moscow visit of the Iraqi Ölministers Hussein al-Shahristani.
After talks with Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said al-Shahristani, that “the decision on the debt is not linked with other issues will be,” the Russian companies such as Lukoil “in Iraq have no preference” and investment tenders on equal terms as all other can participate.
Already in March 1997, the Lukoil with the Iraqi government signed an agreement on the development of the occurrence West Kurna-2, the government of Saddam Hussein but deteriorated in 2002 sparked the contract unilaterally, relying on non-fulfillment of obligations to unilaterally russischerseits.
The new power superiors in Iraq declared that it under Saddam Hussein does not recognize the agreements and that Kurna-2 via a tender will decide where you will also Russian companies could participate.
What is known is that the Iraqi Ölminister during his Moscow visit with Lukoil President Wagit Alekperow met, but the results of the meeting were not publicized.
The Iraqi Prime Minister does not seem to be empty-handed to Moscow. As the RIA Novosti source in the Iraqi government announced, Al-Maliki wants Moscow to expand cooperation in economy and trade, and in the military sphere propose.
“It is not excluded,” added the insider added, “that after the Moscow talks of the Iraqi Government contracts for the Russian companies under the former Iraqi regime included, revised.”
BTW Russian experts worked in Iraq during the War of 2003 and there are even today. For example, in the power plants’ Dora ‘and’ Youssoufia “in Baghdad.
A question for the military cooperation. It is no secret that the Iraqi army in the times of Saddam Hussein’s 80 percent equipped with Soviet weapons was. Until 1991, weapons were delivered to Iraq, following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, the international coalition forces’ Operation Desert Storm “(Desert Storm) started.
After this war, Russia joined the UN sanctions, which among other things, imposed an embargo on military supplies to Iraq activities.
Today, the Iraqi army and police of American and British experts. But the soldiers and officers of the Iraqi army with a Kalashnikov can be a much better deal than with an American M-16-rifle. Dealing with Russian or Soviet weapons was taught them, not with American.
It is not inconceivable that Moscow will ask Baghdad, the Iraqi army with a new Russian military technology device. Very interested in showing the Iraqis on new aircraft, tanks and air defense resources. In addition to Iraq, as in the past its military specialists to study in Russia.
It’s worth it but not too many illusions about the prospects of cooperation with Baghdad to make. Unlike in Saddam’s Iraq, where the USSR and then Russia had very strong positions, will be in Iraq today the U.S. and Western companies is preferred.
Therefore, the government is al-Malikis the new relationship with Russia is always with a careful look at Washington Building. The only question is how far this goes caution.
