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U.N. Experts to Discuss Fresh Iraq Sanctions
MOSCOW, June 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are to meet at expert level in Paris this week to discuss changing the Iraqi sanctions regime as Baghdad reiterated its rejection of further U.N. sponsored penalties for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The experts from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States will meet on June 12 and 13 to discuss British-U.S. and French proposals on the application of the U.N. embargo on trade with Iraq, the Russian Interfax news agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying.
They will then go on to a meeting in New York where a senior U.N. official said Thursday that the Security Council aimed to complete its so-called "reform" of the sanctions regime by the end of the month, in time for a renewal of the U.N. humanitarian deal, news agencies reported.
Britain, with U.S. backing, has put forward a draft that would abolish the embargo on civilian trade with Iraq, while tightening a weapons ban and controls on smuggling outside a U.N. oil-for-food deal.
France has submitted an alternative draft that would widen the proposed reforms to allow foreign companies to invest in Iraq, including the lifeblood oil industry.
"It is possible that by the middle of next week, a text will emerge based on the two existing drafts and, hopefully, concrete negotiations on the text will then start" council president, Anwarul Chowdhury of Bangladesh, said at the world body's headquarters.
He said it was the "general view" of the council "that all efforts should be made to conclude the negotiations by the end of this month, in the time-frame of the one-month rollover" of the oil-for-food program agreed on June 1.
Meanwhile Iraq has again said it rejected the "smart" sanctions proposed by Britain and the United States. Parliament speaker Saadun Hammadi said Saturday that the new set of sanctions were aimed at placing the Iraqi people under the "permanent tutelage" of the United Nations.
Official newspapers said Baghdad's rejection of the proposed U.N. resolution on sanctions was "final".
In talks with former U.N. aid coordinator Hans von Sponeck who has turned into an anti-sanctions campaigner, Hammadi said the new regime aimed "to place the Iraqi people under the permanent tutelage of the United Nations".
"We reject this resolution ... and our position is final," said the government daily Al-Jumhuriya.
The proposals amount to "an ill-intentioned Zionist strategy being carried out by stupid U.S. means ... to control the national economy (of Iraq) for political ends," the paper charged.
Al-Iraq daily has accused France of adopting a "hostile" position towards Baghdad and being behind the "unfair" embargo imposed on Iraq, Baghdad daily reported.
"France has skillfully cooperated (with the United States and Britain) to impose and perpetuate up until now the sanctions" slapped on Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990, the paper added.
Meanwhile, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has urged Russia on Friday to "intervene to reject any resolution that does not call for a total and unconditional lifting of the crippling 11-year-old embargo", as Russia is one of five permanent members with a power of veto over Security Council decisions.
"We hope Russia will prevent the issuing of such a resolution...as it has the legal potential to do so," Saddam told visiting Russian Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Iraq halted on June 4 for at least one month its U.N.-supervised oil exports of 2.2 million barrels a day in protest at the proposal to impose the so-called "smart" sanctions.
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