JJLL
11-16-2004, 01:57 PM
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6830339
UPDATE 1-UK's Brown backs US on Iraq debt forgiveness
Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:01 PM ET
By Lisa Jucca
BRUSSELS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The "vast majority" of Iraq's debts should be written off, Britain's finance minister said on Tuesday in an apparent show of support to Washington in a trans-Atlantic rift over how much of the debt pile to forgive.
France, which opposed last year's U.S.-led Iraq war, has proposed that only half of the debt should be waived initially, whereas the United States had pushed for 90-95 percent.
French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said Russia, Germany and Italy all support the French proposal.
British Finance Minister Gordon Brown's call for a big write-off of the $125 billion owed by Iraq came ahead of a meeting on Thursday of officials from the 19 members of the Paris Club who will seek to resolve the rift. "We have said the vast majority of the Iraqi debt should be written off," Brown told reporters at a European Union finance ministers' meeting. "But we need to get an agreement from all countries that are owed debt.
"I will be talking to John Snow, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, about this this afternoon," he added during a briefing at the Brussels meeting. "It will probably be a matter that will have to be raised in the G7 later."
Finance ministers from Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations will meet in Berlin on Friday at a broader gathering with their other counterparts from the G20 group of developed and emerging market economies.
The debt dispute has revived lingering tensions between Washington and Paris over the U.S.-led Iraq war, which Russia and Germany opposed along with France.
The United States says Iraq needs enormous debt relief to get back on its feet and become economically viable.
France argues that Iraq has the world's second-largest oil reserves and should not be treated like impoverished African nations without such natural resources.
UPDATE 1-UK's Brown backs US on Iraq debt forgiveness
Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:01 PM ET
By Lisa Jucca
BRUSSELS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The "vast majority" of Iraq's debts should be written off, Britain's finance minister said on Tuesday in an apparent show of support to Washington in a trans-Atlantic rift over how much of the debt pile to forgive.
France, which opposed last year's U.S.-led Iraq war, has proposed that only half of the debt should be waived initially, whereas the United States had pushed for 90-95 percent.
French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said Russia, Germany and Italy all support the French proposal.
British Finance Minister Gordon Brown's call for a big write-off of the $125 billion owed by Iraq came ahead of a meeting on Thursday of officials from the 19 members of the Paris Club who will seek to resolve the rift. "We have said the vast majority of the Iraqi debt should be written off," Brown told reporters at a European Union finance ministers' meeting. "But we need to get an agreement from all countries that are owed debt.
"I will be talking to John Snow, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, about this this afternoon," he added during a briefing at the Brussels meeting. "It will probably be a matter that will have to be raised in the G7 later."
Finance ministers from Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations will meet in Berlin on Friday at a broader gathering with their other counterparts from the G20 group of developed and emerging market economies.
The debt dispute has revived lingering tensions between Washington and Paris over the U.S.-led Iraq war, which Russia and Germany opposed along with France.
The United States says Iraq needs enormous debt relief to get back on its feet and become economically viable.
France argues that Iraq has the world's second-largest oil reserves and should not be treated like impoverished African nations without such natural resources.