Iraq Says Kuwait Impedes Calls for Lifting Sanctions

An Iraqi Information Ministry spokesman on Sunday accused Kuwait of impeding any call for lifting the decade-old U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

In a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA), the unidentified spokesman said that the Kuwaiti rulers try to harm Iraq "through their behaviour and statements."

The spokesman alleged that Kuwait had started an anti-Iraq diplomatic and media campaign which coincided with the U.S. calls for the so-called "smart sanctions" against Iraq.

In the wake of the March Arab summit in Jordanian capital Amman, Kuwait has been dispatching emissaries to major powers in the world to explain Kuwait's stance on Iraq.

Iraq has slammed the Kuwaiti move, claiming that the aim behind the campaign is to "maintain the embargo as well as the (U.S. and British) aggressions against Iraq."

"It is obvious that the campaign coincides with the U.S. call for strengthening the embargo on Iraq under the cover of smart sanctions," the Al-Thawra, mouthpiece of Iraq's ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party, said in an editorial on Thursday.

The Amman Arab summit failed to produce a compromise for reconciliation between Kuwait and Iraq. Both countries have traded accusations for the failure of reconciliation efforts at the summit.

Iraq has been under stringent U.N. sanctions since it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Following the 1991 Gulf War, which liberated Iraq's seven-month occupation of the small emirate, the U.S. and its Western allies established the two no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by Iraqi government troops.

Iraq is resentful of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, who have been playing hosts to U.S. and British warplanes to mount armed patrols over the southern no-fly zone.

Baghdad has never recognized the two no-fly zones for lack of clear U.N. authorization.

Facing growing international criticisms over the no-fly zones as well as the sanctions on Iraq, the U.S. proposed the so-called " smart sanctions" in February to ease curbs on Iraq's imports of civilian goods but shore up controls on materials that can be used for military purposes.

Iraq has flatly rejected the modified sanctions regime and demanded a total lifting of the decade-old sanctions.






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