Iraq Demands End to Air BanIraq has demanded the United Nations to end the "baseless" air ban imposed on the country, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported on Tuesday.The demand was conveyed to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan by Iraqi National Assembly (parliament) Speaker Saadoun Hamadi, who is now in Geneva to attend the special session of the U.N. General Assembly on social development. At present, flights to and from Iraq must get prior permission from the U.N. Sanctions Committee, but air travel by Iraqi pilgrims to Islam's most sacred sites in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia, has been exempted from the sweeping U.N. sanctions. Hamadi pointed out that the air ban was unilaterally imposed on Iraq by the U.S.-led Western allies following the 1991 Gulf War, and was not explicitly covered by any U.N. resolutions. He also called for intervention of the U.N. secretary general to make the U.S. and British representatives stop putting on hold contracts Iraq signed with foreign countries to import food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies. Iraq has repeatedly accused the U.S. and Britain of blocking the contracts it signed with other countries, worsening the humanitarian crisis resulted in the decade-old U.N. sanctions. Under the U.N. oil-for-food program, Iraq is allowed to export crude and use part of the revenue, under the U.N. supervision, to import food, medicine and other necessities for its 22 million people, who have been under stringent U.N. sanctions ever since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. |
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