MOSCOW, April 21: A senior US defence adviser suggested in an interview published on Monday in Moscow that Russia was likely to lose rights to Iraqi oil contracts signed under the Saddam Hussein government.

“There is a high probability that all previous deals with Russia will be declared meaningless,” Richard Perle, adviser to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said in an interview with the Kommersant business daily.

“Of course this is something for the new Iraqi government to decide,” Perle said in an interview published in Russian.

“But I would be surprised if Russia wins the support of the new Iraqi leadership — the same support that it received from (Saddam) Hussein,” he said.

Russia has vowed to defend its oil interests in Iraq, through international courts if necessary.

Its leading private oil company LUKoil holds a 68.5-percent share in a consortium to develop the West Qurna-2 field with the Iraqi energy ministry and two other Russian companies under an agreement signed in 1997.

LUKoil was to invest some four billion dollars in the site’s development by 2020 under the deal. But the company was unable to exploit the site due to existing UN oil embargoes on Baghdad.

The company estimated the site has oil reserves of some 20 billion barrels.

Washington officials have said Iraqi oil must be used to benefit “the Iraqi people”.—AFP