Kuwait receives USD 270 million in war reparations

Kuwait has received another USD 270 million in compensation for Iraq's 1990 invasion, the UN said Tuesday, as it aims to wrap up reparations more than a decade after Saddam Hussein's death.

The United Nations Compensation Commission was set up in 1991, the same year that a US-led coalition drove former Iraqi dictator Hussein's forces out of Kuwait.

The commission has been authorised to pay out USD 52.4 billion (46.8 billion euros) to individuals, corporations, government bodies and other organisations that incurred losses directly caused by the Iraqi leader's incursion and occupation of Kuwait.

The funds come from a levy on the sale of Iraqi oil and petroleum products.

The commission was forced to halt payments between 2014 and 2018, due to a security crisis in Iraq, notably the takeover of large parts of the country by the Islamic State group.

With the latest payment, the commission said it had paid out a total of USD 48.7 billion, leaving USD 3.7 billion left to be distributed.

Those funds are tied to a single claim submitted by the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation losses in oil production and damage to oil field assets, the commission said in a statement.

Until it requested a pause in 2014, Iraq adhered to the levy, although some have questioned whether the scheme remains fair to a still-struggling nation.

Hussein was ousted by another US invasion in 2003 and executed in 2006.