A UN compensation commission approved Thursday a 15.9 billion dollar (18.05 billion euro) package for the Kuwait Petroleum Company to cover damages incurred in the 1990 invasion by Iraq.
The package was agreed Wednesday by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in New York as part of a compromise deal under which the level of Iraqi oil revenues going into the compensation fund was cut from 30 percent to 25 percent.
Kuwait had claimed 21.6 billion dollars in damages while Japan was demanding 562 million dollars in compensation.
The Japanese oil company Arabian Oil also received 21.9 million dollars in compensation, announced Motjaba Kazazi, the head of the commission's secretariat.
But the UN commission made no decision concerning Saudi Arabia, which had claimed 749 million dollars in compensation.
In approving the compensation package, the UN Security Council recovered some of unity over how to deal with Iraq, which has been under a tough international sanctions regime since 1990 -- GENEVA (AFP)
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