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India Calls for Lifting of International Sanctions on Iraq
India calls for the lifting of the 11-year-old United Nations sanctions on Iraq as the sanctions have also inflicted damages on India's interests, an Indian parliamentary official said on Sunday.
The sanctions have not only hurt Iraq but also India, as the two countries "share interests," Najma Heptulla, deputy chairperson of the upper house of the Indian parliament, told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) at the end of a three-day visit.
Heptulla said that during the visit, she held talks with top Iraqi officials on ways of promoting relations in various fields, especially trade and transportation.
She met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Saturday and delivered a message to him from Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
She hailed the talks with Saddam as "historic" and termed her talks with senior Iraqi officials, including Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, as "successful and positive," INA said.
Heptulla, heading an 80-member delegation, arrived in the Iraqi capital on Friday for a visit aimed at enhancing the political and economic ties between the two countries.
The trade between Iraq and India have been warming up. The two countries signed an agreement last year to trade oil in exchange for wheat, with New Delhi giving 35,000 tons of wheat for some 250 million U.S. dollars worth of Iraqi crude.
Iraq has been under sweeping U.N. sanctions after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But under the U.N. oil-for-food program, Iraq is allowed to export oil to import food and medicines to ease the sufferings of the Iraqi people.
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