Middle East Online, UK
June 4, 2003

Russian FM receives reassurances from US officials Russian firms will face no discrimination in Iraq.

MADRID – US officials reassured Russia on Wednesday that Russian firms would not face discrimination in Iraq, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said.

“We received reassurances from representatives of the US administration that there would be no discrimination against Russian companies,” he told reporters after a meeting with his NATO counterparts.

Those counterparts included US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, standing in for US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the two-day meeting in Madrid.

Russian firms “will be able to participate, equally with others, in bidding for contracts. If they are successful, they will be able to fulfil these contracts,” said Ivanov.

Russia opposed the US-led war on Iraq, and after the conflict demanded a central UN role in running the country. A compromise was struck at the United Nations which gives wide control to the US-British coalition.

Ivanov said that Russia “has a long experience of cooperation with Iraq. Many companies and many industrial sites have been developed with the help of Russian experts,” he said.

“That is why we see prospects for cooperation in the future,” he added.

Ivanov meanwhile added that the question of Iraq’s huge international debts was to be settled, under UN Security Council resolution 1483, by international institutions notably the Paris Club of creditor nations.

“This concerns Iraqi debts to Russia as well as other countries. We are going to use these international mechanisms,” he said.