BAGHDAD, June 10 (Reuters) - Iraq has agreed to pay about $2.76 billion in gas and electricity debt to Iran after receiving a sanctions waiver from the United States, a senior Iraqi foreign ministry official said.
Due to decades of conflict and sanctions, Iraq is dependent on imports from Iran for a lot of its gas needs.
However, U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil and gas have hampered Iraq's payments for imports, putting it in heavy arrears and leading Iran to retaliate by cutting gas flows regularly.
Iran has been unable to access billions of dollars in assets in several countries due to U.S. sanctions.
The United States has insisted that oil-rich Iraq, the OPEC group's second-largest producer, moves towards self-sufficiency as a condition for its exemption to import Iranian energy, yet Baghdad has struggled to do so.
Persons:
Fuad Hussein, Antony Blinken, Ahmed Al, Sahhaf, Hussein, Yahya Al, Ahmed Rasheed, Amina Ismail, Andrew Cawthorne
Organizations:
U.S, Riyadh Conference, Reuters, Iraqi Foreign Ministry, Commercial Bank of Iraq, United, OPEC, Dubai, Thomson
Locations:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Iran, United States, Iraqi, Riyadh, Baghdad