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Iraq Rejects French Amendments To "Smart" Sanctions
BAGHDAD, May 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz rejected Saturday French amendments to U.S. and British proposals to revise the decade-old sanctions regime against Baghdad, saying the changes "were merely cosmetic", news agencies said.
"It seems to me on first reading that the French project is identical to the British project but with French make-up," said Aziz, who is also Iraq's acting Foreign Minister, quoted by the official news agency INA.
"Our position is the same on these projects," he said, referring to Baghdad's rejection of British and U.S. proposals to fine-tune the sanctions in force since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
France has proposed amendments to bridge the gaps and make a U.S.-British draft resolution "more acceptable" to Moscow, according to diplomats in New York.
The British proposal, presented at the United Nations on Tuesday night, aims to end many of the sanctions on civilian supplies to Iraq while maintaining the U.N.'s control of Iraq's finances and restricting the smuggling of goods into the country.
The new policy is an attempt to fend off criticism that the decade-old embargo has caused a humanitarian tragedy in Iraq.
Aziz has already warned that Iraq will halt its oil exports under the U.N. program if the so-called "smart" sanctions are implemented.
Earlier, Iraq's ruling Baath party said Monday that Paris was at the root of the original U.S. and British proposals and slammed what it called "two-faced" French policies.
Paris was "opposing U.S. intransigence while at the same time advising the United States and the British to adopt a smarter policy toward Iraq to avoid a collapse of the sanctions regime," said the party's mouthpiece, Ath-Thawra.
London and Washington are working to have their proposal approved by June 3rd when the U.N. oil-for-food program comes up for renewal.
The British initiative to introduce "smart sanctions" against Iraq has run into trouble after Russia and China immediately raised objections and Iraq threatened to cut off oil supplies to its neighbors, news agencies said.
One Russian diplomat said: "We will not accept this idea of smart sanctions. This is not about easing the sanctions but about strengthening them. We believe the sanctions should be lifted."
Russia stepped in Tuesday with a draft resolution of its own that could block for six months the proposals to amend the program, which runs in half-yearly phases, AFP reported.
Implementing the sanctions on Iraq depends on the support of Russia and China since both are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council with veto powers and the co-operation of Iraq's neighbors.
According to Arabic News website, the exportation of Iraqi oil to Syria and other neighboring states like Turkey and Jordan yields millions of U.S. dollars to Iraq, without U.N. supervision in charge of monitoring exports through the program.
Baghdad states it believes the U.S. and British "smart sanctions" are doomed to failure.
The proposal to "refocus" the embargo is reportedly designed to win back political support, especially in the Middle East, where anti-Western emotions are running high due to the suffering of Iraqi civilians as a result of the sanctions and continued Israeli violence in the region.
The British-American plan calls for removing most controls on Iraqi civilian supplies, while placing military or "dual-use" goods on a list of banned imports.
This would go hand-in-hand with plans to tighten up inspections on Iraq's borders to reduce smuggling, which has reportedly given Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a source of income outside the control of the U.N. oil-for-food program.
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