#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.