MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - A senior Russian politician rejected Friday allegations made in a report into the UN's Oil-for-Food program that he received major oil quotas from the former leadership of Iraq.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of the lower chamber of parliament and the leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, said: "I personally did not sign one contract, did not receive one cent from the Iraqi side and was not involved in commerce."
He and former head of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin were among those mentioned in an UN-backed independent report by the Volcker Commission as recipients of large oil export quotas in the framework of the program.
Zhirinovsky said his contacts with the Iraqi authorities had been established long before the introduction of economic sanctions against Iraq and the launch of the program.
According to Zhirinovsky, long a controversial figure in Russian politics, many oil companies, including Russian, went to Iraq to negotiate oil export quotas when the Oil-for-Food program started in 1996 and he acted as an intermediary between Russian oil companies and the Iraqi leadership.
"This was my sole purpose because I did not have anything to do with companies that later concluded contracts with Iraq," he said. "I was lobbying Russia's interests, not Iraqi ones. It is my right and the position of our party to protect Russia's interests whenever and wherever it is necessary," he said.
The investigation into the Oil-for-Food fraud, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, said the Saddam Hussein regime had received $1.8 billion in illicit payments from 66 member states.
