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by Emad Mekay CAIRO (Islam Online) - Jordan will be the first Arab country to violate a 10-year-old United Nations air embargo on Iraq with a flight due to arrive on Wednesday carrying top officials, a daily newspaper said. The Jordanian newspaper, al-Rai, quoted Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ellah al-Khatib as saying that preparations were under way for the flight to take off as scheduled. Khatib said the plane would deliver humanitarian aid to the Iraqis who have been hard hit by strict U.N. sanctions imposed after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Despite Western objections, several flights to Baghdad from France and Russia have escaped major criticism. Western countries, particularly Great Britain and the United States, still oppose a lifting of the air embargo. Before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Baghdad was Jordan's largest trade partner, with the Jordanian economy relying mostly on subsidized Iraqi oil. Syria, another Arab country, has called for an end of sanctions on Iraq after a meeting between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz on Tuesday. The two countries re-established diplomatic links earlier and Damascus restored train links with Baghdad for the first time since 1982. The Iraqis are hopeful that Syria will follow the example of France and Russia. Damascus has already expressed strong support for the idea but is anxious to secure Arab support before breaking the sanctions. Although Arab leaders are strongly against the Iraqi President, their populations have been angry at the plight of fellow Arabs. Several Arab newspapers opined sympathetic editorials for Iraqis and lamented that fact that the first flights to violate U.N. sanctions were not Arab. Prominent Egyptian writer Salama Ahmed Salama, of the widely read official daily Al-Ahram, devoted his column on Tuesday to a call to join efforts to end the embargo. "Iraqis have the right to look forward for an Arab reaction," Salama wrote. "Let the Arab nations stampede the oppressive embargo that the U.S. and Britain impose on the Iraqis." Another French plane is scheduled to arrive in Baghdad on Friday. The French argue that since the flights are neither commercial, nor cargo, they don't need permission for the U.N., only notification. The U.N. Security Council is currently debating whether authorization from the U.N. sanctions committee is needed. The Friday flight will carry former French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson, two other ex-cabinet ministers, and dozens of others, including some European members of parliament. Iraq's friends at the Security Council - France, Russia and China - are working towards an end to the sanctions. France has reportedly submitted a proposal that would end the air embargo. And a Russian request for a fourth flight to Iraq in as many weeks is currently being processed, along with one from Iceland and Jordan. |
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