The conference gave Iraqi officials a stage to protest economic sanctions MESSAGE BOARD: Situation in Iraq

July 30, 1999
Web posted at: 7:23 p.m. EDT (2323 GMT)

In this story: Iraq calls for Arab support No-fly zone encounters escalate RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

UNITED NATIONS -- As Iraqi officials continue to protest what they say are the injustices of a nine-year-old trade embargo and the so-called no-fly zones, Britain is considering easing the sanctions in an effort to get U.N. Security Council support on a new policy toward Iraq.

Britain's proposed draft resolution, supported by at least nine of the 15 council members, including the United States, would suspend sanctions only on Iraqi exports, such as oil, providing that Baghdad answers key questions on its weapons of mass destruction.

Ambassadors from several nations on the council said Friday that Britain was now seriously considering suspending sanctions on imports as well as exports but that a resolution to the dispute was still weeks away.

"We are moving forward, inch by inch," a senior French envoy said.

France, Russia and China, sympathetic to Iraq, are opposed to many points in the British draft, drawn up with the Netherlands, and want a wide-ranging suspension of sanctions on imports as well as less stringent requirements on weapons demands.

The three countries, along with the United States and Britain, have veto power as permanent council members.

Compliance on weapons demands is a key requirement for lifting the sanctions. Baghdad has not permitted weapons inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission, whom it says are U.S. spies, to return since they left on the eve of mid- December 1998 U.S.-British bombing raids against Iraq.

Iraq calls for Arab support

The U.S. and Britain say they enforce the no-fly zones to protect Iraqi Kurds, such as these, in the north, and Shiites in the south

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials used a conference of Arab political parties in Baghdad as a platform to air their grievances over the sanctions and to call for Arab support to help eliminate them.

"Iraq has implemented all the requirements of the U.N. resolutions, and the time has come that the Security Council should lift the sanctions. Any delay in that is a political trick," said Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz Friday.

Aziz also questioned why some countries recognize the no-fly zones over Iraq, which he described as illegitimate.

The no-fly zones were set up by the allied forces after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to protect Kurdish rebels in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from Baghdad forces. U.S. and British planes regularly patrol the zones, which cover most of Iraq's airspace, and have attacked more than 400 Iraqi targets since then.

No-fly zone encounters escalate

Statements from both sides mark a clear escalation of the conflict over the no-fly zones in recent days.

Iraq said nine people were killed and 23 injured in U.S.- British air attacks in the northern and southern no-fly zones on Friday.

Iraqi TV aired the funeral of 8 people allegedly killed by U.S. and British bombs

The dead were "martyred ... because of the enemy British and American planes' attacks on our service and civilian facilities," Iraq's officials news agency, INA, reported.

It was the third time in two weeks that Iraq has reported fatalities from airstrikes by allied planes. The government reported 14 deaths on July 18 and eight deaths on Thursday.

A statement by the U.S. Southern Command in Tampa, Florida, on Friday said the most recent attack on Iraq's southern no- fly zone was in response to "an increasing number of violations" of the no-fly zone, including penetration of the area, which stretches to the Kuwaiti and Saudi border from just south of Baghdad, by four MiG-23 fighters Thursday.

Like the economic sanctions against Iraq, the no-fly zones are controversial among the Security Council members.

"There are those that believe that a totality of various resolutions entitles them to enforce a no-fly zone," said U.N. special envoy Prakash Shah. "There are other countries that have made it very clear in the Security Council -- including some permanent members -- that there is no authorization from the Security Council for a no-fly zone."

Reporter James Martone and Reuters contributed to this report.

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