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Baghdad Must Cooperate For Sanctions Lifting
MOSCOW, April 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told lawmakers Friday that sanctions against Iraq could only be lifted once Baghdad cooperates with U.N. weapons inspection teams.
Sanctions "can be lifted from Iraq only by the U.N. Security Council and we should work to create conditions to allow the Security Council to take such a step," Interfax quoted Ivanov as telling the State Duma lower house of parliament.
"This can be achieved only through Iraq's cooperation with the U.N.," Ivanov stressed.
President Vladimir Putin outlined Russian proposals for an end to sanctions in exchange for weapons inspections in Iraq in a message delivered to an Arab League summit in Amman on March 27th.
Iraq has been calling on the U.N. Security Council to fulfill its commitments to Iraq and lift the sanctions, which have been in place since 1990.
The Council's permanent members are divided on the issue, with the United States and Britain wanting to maintain the sanctions and China, Russia and France wanting to see them lifted.
Iraq told the U.N. human rights organization Thursday that more than 1.5 million Iraqis - most of them women, children and elderly people - have died because of the sanctions the United Nations imposed to punish Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf urged the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) to call for an end to the sanctions.
He accused the commission of maintaining a "tomblike silence'' in the face of "a powerful state infamous for committing crimes against humanity.''
"The comprehensive, inhumane embargo, which has no precedent in modern history, has resulted in grave deterioration of all health services,'' Al-Sahaf said, news agencies reported.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked Iraq to delay a second round of high level talks in order to try to bridge an impasse over U.N. sanctions and the return of weapons inspectors, diplomats and U.N. officials said Thursday.
Diplomats stressed that in order to get the Iraqis to seriously address the issue of sanctions and inspections, Baghdad must be convinced that the council has a unified position that it must consider seriously.
The delay in the second round of talks will hopefully provide extra time to try to bridge differences in the council, the diplomats said.
Under U.N. resolutions, sanctions cannot be lifted until U.N. weapons inspectors certify that Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and the long-range missiles used to deliver them, have been eliminated.
U.S. President George W. Bush has ordered a review of U.S. policy towards Iraq, which will be an important factor in any future council action, but it has not been completed.
Other Security Council members are also reviewing their Iraq policies and papers presented by Baghdad at the first round of talks in late February.
The Security Council has promised to consider suspending sanctions for renewable 120-day periods if inspectors report that Iraq has cooperated and shown progress toward answering their outstanding questions about its disarmament.
Meanwhile, Iraq on Friday rejected Kuwait's demand that there must be guarantees from Baghdad that it would never invade again before there could be reconciliation between the two former foes.
"By irresponsibly posing extra conditions, Kuwait's leaders are kidding themselves and will end up regretting their policy," blasted Ath-Thawra, mouthpiece of the ruling Baath party.
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah told Asharq al-Awsat, an Arabic-language newspaper published in London, that it is clear that Iraq, through its attitude, does not want sanctions to be lifted and "wants to continue the suffering to which the Iraqi people are subjected."
Ath-Thawra said that Kuwaiti leaders, "through their statements on relations with Iraq ... have stupidly echoed U.S. orders."
"It would, however, be wise for them to put an immediate end to the use of Kuwaiti territory by U.S. and British planes in their daily attacks on Iraq," the newspaper said.
Baghdad frequently rails against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for allowing U.S. and British planes to use bases on their territory to help impose no-fly zones put in place in the north and south of the country after the 1991 Gulf War.
However, Iraq said that it would not oppose holding a trade exhibition by Kuwaiti companies in Baghdad or prevent Kuwait from taking part in the city's annual trade fair, a senior Iraqi trade official said in remarks published Thursday.
"If Kuwaiti companies want to organize a trade exhibition or take part in Baghdad international trade fair, the Iraqi side will not oppose that," the weekly al-Rafedain newspaper quoted Fouzi Hussein Thahir, the director-general of the state-run Iraqi trade fair company, as saying.
Kuwait, by its turn, said that it would allow Iraqis to visit relatives held in its prisons for the first time since Iraq's invasion of the Gulf Arab state, a senior Red Cross official said Thursday.
An Iraqi newspaper said the conflict between Iraq and Kuwait, which has been festering since the 1990-91 conflict, would be resolved if Kuwait pursued a policy away form U.S. influence.
"If the problem was just between us and the rulers of Kuwait, it would be easy to solve," the official al-Iraq newspaper said.
"But the problem is between Iraq and the American administration, and also that the Kuwaiti rulers accept to take part in American [hostile] policy against Iraq."
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