It cannot be ruled out that representatives of the Iraqi leadership will visit Moscow in the near future to discuss matters of economic cooperation between Russia and Iraq, according to Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov. He was speaking in an interview with the pan-Arab [Dubai-based] TV channel Al-Arabiya [which broadcast the interview on 11 October].
"We have economic interests in Iraq. They remain. Let us start with the fact that Iraq's debt to the Russian Federation - not the Soviet Union but the Russian Federation - is several billion dollars. Our finance minister has already announced that we are ready to write off half the debt, but that does not mean that we are writing off the whole debt. We understand what state Iraq is in at the moment. At the same time we realize that - let's put it this way - Iraq is not Afghanistan economically. Iraq is not a poor country. With time it can realistically pay its debts... [agency's ellipsis] We know that the Iraqi leadership is willing, after the normalization of the situation, to resume the implementation of contracts concluded earlier. We maintain contacts with the transitional government of Iraq. I cannot rule out a visit by representatives of the Iraqi leadership to Moscow to discuss economic issues in the near future," Sergey Ivanov said.
The minister recalled that "to date almost all the weapons in Iraq have been of Soviet or Russian manufacture". "And, as far as I know, the military and the police in Iraq continue to value more than anything the Kalashnikov assault rifle and other hardware, and believe that nothing better has ever been invented. So we cannot rule out a normalization of military-technical cooperation - in the future, of course, not now," the minister said.

Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
BBC Monitoring