BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- A senior Iraqi politician has denounced the United States’s control of the Arab country’s economic affairs that has been preventing Baghdad from clearing its debt over Iranian gas imports.
Hadi al-Ameri, head of the Fatah (Conquest) alliance in Iraq’s parliament, laid emphasis on Thursday on the need for his country to grow economically independent of the U.S.
“It is a source of ignominy to be controlled by a U.S. Treasury Department employee. All politicians should unite to realize the country’s economic sovereignty,” he said.
Iraqi leaders have cited U.S. sanctions for not paying some 11 billion euros ($12.1 billion) that it has deposited in an account in the Trade Bank of Iraq for imports of gas and electricity from the Islamic Republic.
Washington has threatened to sanction Baghdad in case the latter tried to pay up its debt in cash.
It was reported earlier this month that Iran had cut gas supplies to Iraq in a renewed attempt to force the Arab country to pay its debts over energy imports.
Later, it was reported that Iraq had reached an understanding with Iran to trade its crude oil for Iranian natural gas supplies as means of settling the long-running dispute.
Ameri said, “I call on Iraqi politicians to courageously announce our economic independence and our extrication from the thralldom of servitude” to the U.S.