The Iraqi government has cancelled an arms deal with Russia worth £2.6 billion due to concerns over “corruption” within the Iraqi government.
The spokesman of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the BBC that the prime minister had suspicions over his own team.
The deal would have made Russia Iraq’s second largest arms supplier after the US.
A Russian military expert told the BBC that the deal was cancelled due to pressure from Washington.
Igor Korotchenko, head of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade, said that the cancellation was "absolutely unprecedented in the history of the Russian arms trade".
"As soon as the deal was announced a month ago I said that the US would not allow Iraq to buy such huge quantities of weapons from Russia. I believe Washington regarded this as an absolutely unacceptable scenario," he said.
"As far as talk about corruption is concerned, I think it's a smokescreen," he said, adding: "I can't see any scope for corruption in the Iraq deal. I believe this is just a pretext and the true reason is Washington applying pressure on Baghdad."
