Iraq asks creditors to cancel billion-dollar debt

Stockholm: Iraq pressed its creditors to cancel about $60 billion (Dh220 billion) in debts at an international conference on Thursday.

However, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, two of Iraq's biggest creditors, sent only junior representatives to the conference.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki said the large debts, some dating back almost 30 years, and compensation payments for Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, were shackling the economy.

Iraq is obliged to set aside 5 per cent of its oil revenues as compensation payments, amounting to $3.5 billion this year, according to the Iraqi government.

"Iraq is not a poor country. It possesses tremendous human and material resources, but the debts of Iraq ... which we inherited from the dictator, hamper the reconstruction process," Maliki told the conference.

"We are looking forward to the brother countries writing off its [Iraq's] debts, which are a burden on the Iraqi government," he said.