Annan Names Two Overseers for Iraq's "Oil-for-Food" Program

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday appointed two additional overseers to monitor the United Nations "oil-for-food" program in Iraq.

They are Michel Tellings of the Netherlands and Morten Buur-Jensen of Denmark.

There were four overseers when the "oil-for-food" program began in late 1996. but every year since then, one overseer left without being replaced. For the past year, there was just one overseer

from Russia.

The "oil-for-food" program was aimed to ease the humanitarian crisis in Iraq caused by stringent U.N. sanctions which have been in place since its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The sanctions cannot be lifted until the United Nations clarifies that Iraq has destroyed all its weapons of mass destruction.

U.N. weapons inspectors have been away from Iraq since the U.S.-led military strikes on the country in December 1998.

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