UN Security Council to Meet on 'Oil-for-food' Extension

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 26, 2002

UN Security Council to Meet on 'Oil-for-food' Extension

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The UN Security Council has scheduled an open meeting on the extension of the "oil-for-food" program designed to ease the impact of the sanctions on Iraqi civilians, a UN spokesperson said at the United Nations Headquarters Monday.

The council meeting will be held after a briefing by Hans Blix,executive chairman of UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, about last week's talks with Iraqi officials on resuming inspections after a four-year break.

A vote is expected during the open meeting on a British draft proposing a six-month extension of the humanitarian program, according to the spokesperson.

"The proposer has put the text in blue last Friday, then drew them back from the document rack," the spokesperson said.

Although a draft in blue means it is ready for vote, last-minute changes are not unusual. Apart from the routine extension every six month, the new draft added a provision requiring a review or adjustment within 90 days of the so-called "goods reviewlist," a diplomat familiar with the text told Xinhua.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was also asked to assess and make recommendations on the 300-page list, approved last May.

Meanwhile, a letter from the Iraqi government to Annan has beendistributed to the 15-member council.

Over last weekend, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri sent a letter to Annan protesting that terms of resolution 1441 could give Washington a pretext for war against his country.

Sabri worried that "inaccurate statements (among) thousands of pages" could justify military action. "There is premeditation to target Iraq, whatever the pretext," he said, in the first officialresponse to the terms of the resolution after his government agreed to "deal with" it generally.

The unanimously adopted resolution requested the Iraqi government to submit, before Dec. 8, a declaration of its weapons of mass destruction, and any material related to them.

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