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| Axis of Evil |
| Iraq Punished Lukoil for Post-Saddam Hedge -Report |
| 2002-12-17 |
| Iraq canceled a rich oil deal with Russia's LUKOIL because the Russian firm had sought assurances its contract would be honored if Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) were removed as Iraq's president, according to an interview published in a Canadian newspaper on Tuesday. The National Post reported that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz told it in an interview in Baghdad that LUKOIL had acted outrageously in seeking to hedge its bets. "LUKOIL went to Washington to get assurances that their contract will be implemented after the removal of the Iraqi regime," the newspaper quoted Aziz as saying. "This is outrageous of them because they signed a contract with us -- such conduct cannot be accepted." That's what we all thought, but it's nice to hear it from the horses, err, mouth. Baghdad scrapped the $3.7 billion deal to develop Iraq's vast West Qurna oilfield last week. Iraqi officials had said the reason was because LUKOIL had carried out no work on the field since the deal was signed in 1997. LUKOIL had said it had been waiting for the lifting of sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Company president Vagit Alekperov said the reason for the cancellation was that Moscow had backed a U.N. resolution allowing for the return of weapons inspectors. Alekperov was quoted by the Financial Times in October as saying Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) had assured the company it would be able to keep its stake in Iraq's oilfields if Saddam were toppled. Putin and Bush made a deal, now there is no reason for Putin to help Saddam. The next big test will be the Russian verdict on the Iraqi U.N. weapons declaration, due this week. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Well, it could hardly be any clearer than that. The Russians ask for assurances that Iraq will honor its side of the deal even if the regime should change, and Iraq responds by breaking the agreement and accusing Russia of welshing by not having done any work. Like I said last week - smooth. Real smooth. And I wouldn't be so astounded as to have my teeth fall out of my head to see a couple of Spetsnaz units show up in Iraq one fine day with instructions to bring Vladimir Putin the head of a certain deal-breaker... |
| Posted by: Joe 2002-12-17 17:30:35 |