US Ambassador to Iraq: Importing natural gas outside the sanctions system
Economy News _ Baghdad
The head of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Atwan Al-Atwani, confirmed on Sunday that the Iraqi government is serious about achieving independence in the field of energy, while the Chargé d’affaires of the US Embassy to Iraq, Daniel Rubinstein, pointed out that the import of natural gas is outside the sanctions system.
A statement from the Finance Committee, received by “Economy News”, said that “the Chairman of the Finance Committee Atwan Al-Atwani, received on Sunday, the Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy to Iraq, Daniel Rubinstein and the accompanying delegation,” noting that “the meeting discussed ways to enhance joint cooperation between Iraq and the United States of America in terms of managing and developing the work of the financial and banking sector.”
He added that “the meeting focused on discussing the file of US sanctions and the extent of their impact on the electricity sector, especially in light of the talk of the expiration of the deadline for exempting Iraq from the import of Iranian gas.”
According to the statement, Al-Atwani stressed “the importance of this visit at this sensitive time, and stressed the need for permanent communication to correct the course of Iraqi-American relations,” carrying “the embassy d’affaires an important message to the government of his country that stopping the import of gas will be catastrophic consequences for the Iraqi people, especially in the summer, as it will cause the collapse of the national electricity system, because there are no alternatives at the moment.”
He pointed out that “the Iraqi government is serious about achieving independence in the field of energy through many promising projects with regard to the investment of associated gas, for the purpose of using it in the generation of electricity and in a way that achieves self-sufficiency, but these projects will enter service in the coming years.”
He called on “the US administration to review the policy of pressure exerted by the US Treasury on the financial and banking sector in Iraq by imposing continuous sanctions on local banks.”
He stated that “Iraq has achieved a paradigm shift in the policy of compliance and financial transfers, and yet we are surprised by collective sanctions targeting Iraqi banks without prior warning and without announced justification or even notifying the Central Bank of Iraq of this, and this created a big problem for us, and affected the work and activity of the banking sector.”
For his part, Rubinstein expressed his understanding of what Al-Atwani put forward during the meeting regarding the energy files and banking sanctions, and promised to convey these messages to his country’s government in the hope of finding permanent treatments and solutions in the interest of the two friendly peoples,” pointing out that “the import of natural gas is so far outside the sanctions system.”
