Moscow yields to Baghdad's tempting offers.
Both Moscow and Baghdad have welcomed the visit to Russia by an Iraqi delegation led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which ended on Saturday. The parties have agreed to promote cooperation in the power and oil industries and in the military field. Nezavisimaya Gazeta has learned that Baghdad is shortly to send a team of experts to Russia to choose the model of helicopter that Iraq would buy.
The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, accompanied by the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister, the Minister of Electricity and representatives of the Oil Ministry arrived in Russia on Thursday evening. The main talks with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev were held on Friday. On Saturday the Iraqi visitors met with the Russian businessmen.
An official spokesman for the Iraqi Government told NG that the visit to Moscow had been a success. "Now we look forward to the implementation of the good intentions on both sides", the spokesman said. He said that Iraq planned to buy a new batch of Russian helicopters. According to our data, in 2010 Iraq will be supplied with 22 Mi-17 helicopters, which will then be fitted with foreign equipment and weapons. Iraq may buy another batch of 20 helicopters. Concrete figures were not discussed in Moscow, the Iraqi spokesman said, "but we do want to buy helicopters from Russia. After this visit a technical team will arrive to establish which model meets our needs best of all", the Iraqi official said.
Mr Putin said that Moscow had taken note of Baghdad's interest in the resumption of military-technical cooperation. However, the key topic of the talks between the Russian and Iraqi Prime Ministers was cooperation in the oil and gas sphere. Iraqi Electricity Minister Karim Wahid is quoted by RIA Novosti as saying that Russian companies, including LUKoil, have a good chance to take part in the oil sector. Iraq believes that Russian companies would help the country to bring its oil output to 6.5 million barrels a day by 2016. Mr Wahid also noted the big future for the gas sector. For his part the representative of Iraq's Oil Ministry noted that the Iraqi Government was ready to sign an agreement on setting up joint ventures with oil and engineering companies in the field of drilling, exploration and other sectors.
The Iraqi guests invited Russian companies to open their offices in Baghdad in order to prepare bids for tenders in due time. Prime Minister al-Maliki personally guaranteed the safety of Russian investments. That is a valuable remark because Moscow and Baghdad still haven't agreed on the fate of some contracts signed by Russian companies under Saddam Hussein.
The first among them is LUKoil's contract to develop a major West Qurna-2 field which Baghdad's new authorities consider to be null and void. The Russian Energy Minister, Sergei Shmatko, said after the meeting of the Prime Ministers: "We have agreed in principle that the situation with prewar contracts will be the subject of special monitoring. A working group to reanimate these contracts is to meet shortly."
The signs are that the Iraqis will set their terms for reanimating the contracts. As the Iraqi Government's spokesman told NG, "there are priority laws and rules" in Iraq. "We adhere to these laws. We want to establish cooperation with LUKoil in the framework of these laws". Incidentally, LUKoil is prepared to amend its contract to match Iraq's new laws, Mr Alekperov said.
Clearly this will be discussed during the forthcoming visit to Baghdad of a Russian Government delegation led by Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko. Mr Putin has accepted al-Maliki's invitation to come to Iraq but is not in a hurry to pay his visit.
Moscow was particularly gratified by Iraq's proposals in the field of power industry. "We have got some tempting offers for Russian companies to take part in the development of Iraq's power industry and infrastructure. Tekhnopromexport and Stroitransgas may take part in three projects," Mr Shmatko said. In addition, on Friday, Tekhnopromexport signed a $133-million contract to restore the Harta Thermal Power Plant. The contract is financed by the World Bank, RIA Novosti reports.
Meanwhile the issue of Iraq's debt to Russia is still open. As this paper has reported, Moscow has written off $10 billion, but it is unclear how the remaining sum - about $1.5 billion - will be redeemed. According to the Iraqi Government spokesman, Mr al-Maliki "thanked the Russian people and the Government of Russia as represented by Mr Putin for writing off Iraq's debt." "We will be in contact to settle the remainder of the debt", the Iraqi spokesman said.
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Mr al-Maliki thanked the Russian people and Government for writing off Iraq's debt.
Andrei Terekhov