BAGHDAD Seven Arab countries owe Iraq more than $1.84 billion, Iraqi newspapers said on Saturday.

"The amount of money due to be paid to Iraq by a number of Arab countries up to March 31, 2001 was $1,844,664,000," the papers quoted Finance Minister Hikmat Mezban Ibrahim as saying.

He named the countries as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Somalia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, the papers, including the official ****Al-Iraq*** and ****Al-Jumhouriya****, said.

In 1999, Iraq said its frozen assets in these Arab countries reached $1.7 billion. Any increase was likely to have been accounted for by interest accruals.

The papers said the money owed to Iraq covered loans offered by Iraq, oil exports, official bank deposits and profits of jointly held Arab companies before the 1991 Persian Gulf War over Kuwait.

Iraq's assets abroad, the bulk of them in U.S. and European banks, were impounded when it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Baghdad has called many times for the release of its frozen assets to cover humanitarian purchases as well as to pay for Iraqis wishing to go to Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage.

Riyadh has several times turned down Iraqi requests to free some of its assets to pay for thousands of Iraqi pilgrims.

Iraq is under United Nations trade sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But the UN has allowed Iraq since December 1996 to sell oil in order to buy food and medicine for Iraqis suffering under the sanctions.

(Reuter)