#7 - JRL 7139 RUSSIAN POLITICAL ANALYST: RUSSIA TO PLAY IMPORTANT PART IN POSTWAR IRAQ MOSCOW, April 9, 2003. /From a RIA Novosti correspondent/--Russia will play an important part in Iraq's postwar restoration, believes head of the Russian President's Foreign and Defence Policy Council Sergei Karaganov. So far, it is not clear what exactly Russia's role is going to be, but anyway the country will be "a significant figure", the prominent Russian political analyst said at a press conference in RIA Novosti on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Russia "has not specified its political and geopolitical interests" in connection with the Iraqi conflict, he pointed out. When speaking on Iraq's debt to Russia, Karaganov said that Moscow would have difficulties in receiving this debt "in any case". "At present, another question is at issue, whether we will be able to join new large contracts to produce oil and restore Iraq's infrastructure," the scientist believes. This meets the interests of Russian oil companies and of "Russia on the whole", he emphasised.
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