Iraq Says Over 2,400 Contracts Shelved by U.S., Britain

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, February 18, 2002

Iraq Says Over 2,400 Contracts Shelved by U.S., Britain

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Iraq said on Sunday that 2,417 humanitarian contracts with a value of 8.139 billion U.S. dollars have been put on hold by representatives of the United States and Britain at the United Nations Sanctions Committee.

This is the first time that Iraq reports the value of suspended contracts has surpassed 8 billion dollars.

Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Salah told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) that Iraq's pivotal oil sector has been hit hard with suspended contracts totalling 591.

Contracts for agriculture and irrigation sectors suspended account for 318, 303 for medicine, 228 for food, 222 for transport and communication, and the rest for other vital sectors such as trade, electricity, water and drainage, he said.

Salah slammed the "hostile" behaviour of the U.S. and Britain as aiming at doing more harm to Iraq, the INA said.

These contracts have been signed between Iraq and other countries under the five-year-old U.N. oil-for-food program, which allows Iraq to bypass the U.N. sanctions to sell oil and use part of the oil revenues to buy food, medicine and other essentials to offset the impact of the sanctions.

Iraq has been under sweeping U.N. sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The United States and Britain have been the dominant forces behind the continuation of the sanctions.

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