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Iraq to Reject U.N. Resolution on "Smart Sanctions": Diplomat
A senior Iraq diplomat on Friday said that his country will "vehemently" reject any United Nations draft resolution on "smart sanctions" against Baghdad, which he termed as "Anglo-American ideas."
Mohammed el-Dawri, Iraqi chief delegate to the United Nations, made the statement in a phone interview with the Cairo-based Voice of Arabs radio from New York.
"I hope that the U.N. would extend the oil-for-food program signed with Iraq for six months as usual after the end of the month," he said.
Dawri said that the U.S. and Britain tried to force Iraq to accept the so-called "smart sanctions" proposal by offering only one month extension of the oil-for-food program.
On June 1, the U.N. Security Council decided to extend the oil- for-food program until July 3. Three days later, Iraq suspended its oil exports to protest against the smart sanctions.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed in February to modify the decade-old U.N. sanctions against Iraq into "smart sanctions," designed to ease import of civilian goods and tighten curbs on military-related materials.
The Iraq diplomat said that Arab countries have expressed their rejection of sustaining the embargo on Iraq, calling on " international powers in the U.N. Security Council who are sympathizing with the Iraqi people to reject the American pressures to tighten the grip on Iraq."
Iraq has been under the international sanctions since 1990 for its invasion of neighboring Kuwait.
In 1996, the U.N. started the oil-for-food program, which allows Iraq to sell oil to buy U.N.-monitored food, medicine and other basic needs to offset the impact of the decade-old U.N. sanctions.
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