Iraqis question Saudi Arabia’s credibility in pumping investments in Iraq after years of rupture and the same reluctance to improve relations, and despite the many Saudi proposals through the media, nothing has been achieved on the ground, according to observers.
The last of these Saudi steps is to seek investment in Iraq, according to news reported after the visit of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ali Abdel Amir Allawi to Saudi Arabia at the end of last month, but no agreement between the two countries on this matter has occurred.
On Saudi promises to pump investments in Iraq, the Iraqi writer and journalist Othman Al-Mukhtar says to Al-Jazeera Net that the Saudi openness was not based on a self-initiated initiative or a vision for Riyadh, but came within an American push, and these deals are not feasible or are commercially and economically losing to Saudi Arabia.
He adds that similar promises have been known about Saudi Arabia in recent years in Yemen and they have not been implemented and others in Lebanon, so it can be said that Saudi Arabia's projects in Iraq are being spent on promoting their media too much.
Saudi promises
And Saudi Arabia announced in previous times its intention to invest in a million dunums of agricultural land in Iraq, and about the entry of Aramco in the Iraqi oil investment market, as well as providing a promise of one billion dollars to invest in Iraq, and another half a billion to support Iraqi exports, but all of this did not happen.
Iraqi civil society activist Ismail Saad, criticizing what he called the Saudi "facilitation" in giving promises to Iraq, said, "Why does Saudi Arabia believe that opening up to Iraq requires this many promises? Who told them that we are dying of hunger ?!".
He added to Al-Jazeera Net, "We want Saudi Arabia to recognize its previous negative roles, and to start a new page in which it shows its good intentions through diplomatic relations, and not through donating and talking about investing in the media only."
Placebo
These promises to the Iraqis go back to the near memory, where the office of former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced in March 2018 that Saudi Arabia donated to build an integrated sports city inside Iraq worth $ 1 billion, and despite the passage of more than two years, nothing has been implemented on the ground Saudi Arabia did not send the money, not even the executing companies.
Iraq and Saudi Arabia had agreed to establish a sports city with a stadium with a capacity of sixty thousand spectators, and other facilities, including two stadiums with a capacity of 2500 spectators, as well as a multi-purpose hall with a capacity of 1500 spectators, and training halls, as well as a hotel with 92 rooms, but that did not happen as well.
A source in the office of the former Minister of Youth and Sports told Al-Jazeera Net, "We communicate with the embassy, and with the Saudi Ministry of Sports, but nothing we got," noting that the matter is at the royal court, and it is who is determined and who decides the case.
"The Saudi side was telling us, allocate the place to begin, and more than a year ago the place was dedicated, but nothing happened."
And the former Iraqi Minister of Youth and Sports, Abdul Hussein Abtan, who started the project with the Saudis, shows that he is annoyed at the delay of Saudi Arabia, or its retreat from the project’s dedication. To give the gift. "
Iraqi political analyst Jumah al-Atwani criticizes what he called "believing" Saudi promises and intentions, and blames the government and the Iraqi media for dealing with Saudi initiatives, considering that such initiatives are only a media hype, considering that any action by Saudi Arabia in Iraq so far is harmful Or useless.
He says to Al-Jazeera Net that "Saudi Arabia has security, political, societal and economic problems at home, and it is unable to invest in Iraq or provide any assistance, and fundamentally we do not wish to help it."
Al-Atwani considered that "Saudi Arabia implements an American desire and tries to win the Iraqi street after years of sending the terrorists, but even these attempts to win are incorrect, and there is no stadium, and there is no Saudi investment in Iraq."
On the last government visit to Riyadh, an Iraqi government source, who preferred not to be identified, explained that "the recent visit of Finance Minister Ali Allawi to Saudi Arabia did not witness the signing of any agreement, and Saudi Arabia did not present the government with any initiative, and we saw that in the media." .
He confirmed in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net that there is no official Saudi investment initiative or project within the corridors of the Iraqi government, and that everything that happens and is circulated has no official support.