At Border with Iran, Iraq PM Vows to fight Customs Corruption

Iraqi border police stand guard on the Iraqi side of the Mandili crossing with Iran on July 11, 2020. (AFP)
Iraqi border police stand guard on the Iraqi side of the Mandili crossing with Iran on July 11, 2020. (AFP)
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At Border with Iran, Iraq PM Vows to fight Customs Corruption

Iraqi border police stand guard on the Iraqi side of the Mandili crossing with Iran on July 11, 2020. (AFP)
Iraqi border police stand guard on the Iraqi side of the Mandili crossing with Iran on July 11, 2020. (AFP)

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi launched a new campaign on Saturday against corruption at the country's borders, saying millions of dollars were being lost by not properly taxing imported goods.

Speaking at the Mandili crossing on the border with Iran, Kadhimi said Iraq's frontier had become "a hotbed for corrupt people".

"This is the beginning of our promise to combat corruption. The first phase is to protect border crossings with new security forces," he said.

"The second is to fight 'ghosts' trying to blackmail Iraqis, and the third is to automate the crossing with new technology," the premier said, standing alongside Border Crossing Commission head Omar al-Waeli.

In response to a question by AFP, Kadhimi added: "We encourage businessmen (importing goods) to pay the customs, not the bribes."

"This will serve as a message to all corrupt people."

Iraq imports virtually all of its consumer goods from either its eastern neighbor Iran or its northern neighbor Turkey.

But government officials, foreign diplomats and businessmen have long complained that the import process at both borders is complicated and rife with corruption.

They accuse customs offices of getting kickbacks from traders in exchange for charging no or low import duties.

In June, Finance Minister Ali Allawi said the government would seek to boost its non-oil revenues, including through import duties, to make up for the collapse in state income from falling oil prices.

"The ports should give us revenues of seven trillion Iraqi dinar a year. We only get one trillion right now," he told reporters at the time.

"To close that gap, we'll need a string of reforms to the customs administration," he said.

Mandili was established in 2014 and is currently controlled by a mix of intelligence forces and the Popular Mobilization Forces, a state-sponsored network of groups including many close to Tehran.

There was no noticeable activity at the border on Saturday, as all of Iraq's 32 crossings remain officially closed to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

PMF fighters could be seen standing in the blistering midsummer sun.

Iraq is ranked one of the top 20 most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency International, with some $450 billion in public funds vanishing into the pockets of shady politicians and businessmen since 2003.

Every premier has pledged new measures to fight corruption but few have been able to make a dent in the deep-rooted practices across the public and private sector.



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.