Iraq’s signing on Wednesday of a $2.625 billion deal with South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering & Construction to build the first phase at its planned Faw commodities port has revealed a dispute between two Iraqi camps over which country should oversee the construction.
Opinion is split between one camp that wants South Korea to take over the project, located in the southern Basra province, and another that wants China to be involved.
The first camp includes Prime Minister Mustsfa al-Kadhimi and political forces that support him, such as the Sairoon coalition of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the al-Hikma alliance led by Ammar al-Hakim. The second camp is comprised mainly of the Fateh alliance of the Popular Mobilization Forces and other parties that are known for their allegiance to Iran.
The positions from both camps over the project, expressed before and after the deal was inked, reveal just how deeply local forces are affected by the stances of regional and international powers. The dispute was not born yesterday, but has been brewing for weeks between the abovementioned camps.
The differing positions can be understood by expanding the overall political scene in Iraq and how it is affected by regional and international interests. Moreover, the South Korean company has been overseeing the al-Faw Grand Port for years and has never been met with such strong opposition as it is today from Iran’s allies.
Under the contract, signed in Baghdad by representatives of Iraq’s transportation ministry and the South Korean company, Daewoo E&C will handle construction work including building five berths to unload ships and a yard for containers.
Daweoo will also carry out dredging and drilling works to create an access navigation channel, Farhan al-Fartousi, Iraq’s director general at the General Company for Ports, told Reuters on the sidelines of a signing ceremony at the transportation ministry headquarters.
The first phase should allow the port to receive three million containers, and all the construction work should be finished in around four years, said Fartousi.
No sooner had the deal been announced that the Fateh alliance and other pro-Iran blocs kicked off efforts to collect signatures to file a request to debrief the minster of transportation.
The alliance claimed that the deal will lead to a “massive waste of public funds and confirms the suspicions of corruption.”
Secretary General of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq Qais al-Khazali slammed the deal, saying the corrupt figures who agreed to it will “eventually be exposed.”
“The people know who you are and will hold you accountable for this major crime against their future,” he tweeted.
“For our part, we will work tirelessly to thwart this crime against Iraq and we hope the honorable people will support us,” he added.
