A senior official in Iran’s National Security Council said Iran retains its right to seek reparations from Iraq for the 8-year war initiated by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, adding that it would not be in Iran’s interest to do so at the moment but the demand will be made at “the proper time.” The value of reparations demanded by Iran exceeds $100 billion. Iraqi elements maintain that Iraq had withdrawn from Iran in 1982 and that for the following 6 years the war continued at the insistence of the Iranian leadership.

[By keeping the issue the reparations on the back burner, Iran intends to use it as an implicit threat to blackmail the Iraqi government for whatever reason it serves its interests.]

Al-Zaman, Iraq, September 29, 2008