GENEVA, June 26: The United Nations on Thursday approved payment of 2.3 billion dollars to governments, companies and individuals for the 1991 Gulf war losses, but rejected most of Kuwait’s largest claim before the compensation body, officials said.

The UN Compensation Commission (UNCC) said that 1.5 billion dollars, the bulk of the latest awards, would go to the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) — far below the 86.7 billion dollars it had sought for losses resulting from Iraq’s 1990-1991 occupation.

The emirate’s biggest ever claim — exceeding that for lost oil and the cost of putting out oil wellhead fires set by fleeing Iraqi troops — covered KIA’s loss of investment income as well as borrowing costs, according to UNCC officials.

The KIA manages the Future Generations Fund, which sold assets to finance Kuwait’s reconstruction.

But the UNCC’s governing council, which ended a three-day meeting on Thursday, slashed the damages owed by Iraq, in line with the view of a panel of independent experts who evaluated the KIA claim over two years, according to officials.

“A large amount of the claim was outside UNCC jurisdiction, including military costs,” a UNCC official said.

A Western diplomatic source said: “The panel got it right.”

The ruling body is made up of the same 15 states as the Security Council.

In all, the UNCC has so far approved compensation of 46.3 billion dollars out of some 300 billion dollars claimed, and paid out 17.6 billion dollars. Just over half has gone to Kuwait and its citizens, followed by claimants from Egypt and Jordan. US and other Western firms have also received hundreds of millions.—Reuters