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Palestinian Delegation Expected to Visit Baghdad for Aid Talks
Iraq has suggested that a Palestinian delegation could visit Baghdad soon to discuss Iraq's aid to the Palestinians, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported Tuesday, December 19.
The suggestion was made in a letter to Farouq Kadumi, a senior Palestinian official, by Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Said Al- Sahaf on Tuesday.
In the letter, Sahaf said that Iraq expects a Palestinian delegation to visit Baghdad as soon as possible to draw up a list of goods and materials that Palestinian need most so that Iraq can provide accordingly.
Iraq has decided to provide 1 billion euro (some US$860 million) of financial aid to support the Palestinians' intifada (uprising) against Israel.
At a joint meeting of Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council and the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party on December 9, Iraq President Saddam Hussein decided to grant the financial aid to "the Palestinian brothers" within a year.
Iraq has informed United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Iraq will accumulate the money needed from its oil revenues earned from the ninth phase of the UN oil-for-food program, Sahaf said.
The program, starting from late 1996, allows Iraq to export oil in return for U.N. monitored imports of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies to ease the impacts of the decade-old UN sanctions. Iraq has been under stringent UN sanctions ever since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq has voiced vehement support for the Palestinians, who have been in conflicts with Israeli soldiers since September 28. Over 300 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed and thousands more injured in the bloody clashes.
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