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UN,
Iraq To Resume Talks March 7 As Sanctions Deadline Looms
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Sabri and Annan meets on March 7 as Annan say It would be unwise for the U.S. to attack Iraq |
UNITED
NATIONS, Feb. 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United Nations said
Monday it would resume top-level talks with Iraq on March 7, less than three
months before the Security Council is expected to adopt tighter sanctions
against Baghdad.
The
United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji
Sabri will meet at UN Headquarters in New York on 7 March to resume their
dialogue, a UN spokesman announced Monday, the UN said on its website.
"The
Secretary-General expects to have focused discussion on the implementation of
the relevant Security Council resolutions, including the return of UN weapons
inspectors to Iraq," spokesman Stephane Dujarric de la Riviere said.
“It
will be a one-day meeting,” he told a UN press briefing. “Part of the issue
is that the Foreign Minister has to return the next day to attend a foreign
ministers meeting of the Arab League, but the Iraqis have indicated to us that
they are willing – if necessary – to continue that dialogue, I believe after
April 5th.”
The
meeting, between UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and an Iraqi delegation led by
Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, will be the first top-level contact since two days
of inconclusive talks ended February 27 last year, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
In
London Annan said Monday that it would be "unwise for the U.S. to attack
Iraq." Annan made the remarks while answering a question concerning the
much-reported U.S. threat to attack Iraq in its so-called global war against
terrorism, after he delivered a speech in London School of Economics on the
World Summit on Sustainable Development. He said all parties should abide by the
UN resolutions on the issue of Iraq.
Annan
also made the same remarks while speaking to reporters outside Tony Blair's 10
Downing St. office after talks with the British Prime Minister. He was asked
about reports that U.S. President George W. Bush is considering extending the
war on terrorism to an attack on Iraq. "I don't think Washington has taken
any decision yet as to what to do about Iraq," Annan said. "But I
myself am on record as saying that any attack on Iraq at this stage would be
unwise."
U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said on February 6 that the Bush administration
still believes strongly in a "regime change" in Iraq, and that
"the United States might have to do it alone."
Since
then, the United States and Russia have bridged differences over Iraqi sanctions
and U.S. President George W. Bush has branded Iraq part of an "axis of
evil," threatening unspecified action unless Baghdad allows the U.N. to
resume arms inspections broken off more than three years ago.
Iraq
sent a message to Annan early this month through the secretary general of the
Arab League, Amr Mussa, saying it wished to resume talks "without
preconditions".
Annan's
spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said February 5 that Annan was ready to resume talks
but "the bottom line for everyone" must be the arms inspectors'
return.
Eckhard's
comments followed a warning from Powell that there must be no dialogue with
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein until he let the inspectors back "under our
terms, under no one else's terms, under the terms of the Security Council
resolution."
The
inspectors were sent to Iraq under UN sanctions imposed after the 1990 Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait. They were withdrawn in December 1998 on the eve of a bombing
campaign by U.S. and British warplanes and Iraq has refused to allow them to
return.
In
agreeing to meet Sabri, associate spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, Annan hoped
for "focused discussion... on the relevant Security Council resolutions,
including the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq". Dujarric said
“the Iraqis have indicated that they are willing to continue the dialogue
after April 5."
Russia,
Iraq's chief ally on the Security Council, welcomed news of the Annan-Sabri
meeting, calling it "one of the means to achieve an improvement in the
overall situation in Iraq."
"We
hope that this dialogue would not be just an exchange of the old positions but
rather an attempt to search for ways to implement Security Council
resolutions," Russia's ambassador to the UN, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters.
UN
officials noted that last year, the Iraqi delegation led by then-foreign
minister Mohammad Said Al-Sahhaf, issued long statements instead of entering a
discussion with Annan and his aides.
At
the time, Russia and the United States – two of the five permanent members of
the Security Council – were deeply divided over sanctions, but the United
States has since agreed to "clarifications" spelling out what Iraq
must do to get sanctions lifted.
"If
we can reach consensus on this point, then I am sure that there will be
possibilities for disarmament inspectors coming to Iraq, which is what all
members of the Security Council want," Lavrov said.
In
return, Russia has agreed to refocus the trade embargo on Iraq on the basis of a
review list designed to prevent the import of items with military potential. The
list will be adopted when the council renews its oil-for-food program in Iraq on
May 29.
Diplomats
have said in private that should Iraq reject the terms on which the program is
renewed, it would give the United States the opportunity to launch a military
strike.
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