Will Iraq make an oil deal this time?

Will Iraq make an oil deal this time?

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuter): Despite Iraq's commitment to talk
about implementing an oil-for-food plan, a successful outcome of
the negotiations is anything but certain, UN officials and
diplomats say.

Iraq has been under strict sanctions since its August 1990
invasion of Kuwait. Its crippled economy and severe shortages
were factors driving Baghdad to agree to talk seriously about
selling limited quantities of oil for badly needed food, medicine
and other necessities.

"The fact that they have agreed proves we have more chances
than we had before," said Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-
Ghali, who has been laying groundwork for a deal almost since he
took office four years ago.

He is expected to announce soon when the talks will begin. But
he noted pointedly that two earlier rounds of talks under his
supervision, in 1992 and 1993, on a similar resolution ended in
failure.

Said a key Security Council ambassador: "I give the talks a
50-50 chance of success."

UN agencies have reported for about two years that civilians,
especially children, in Iraq were suffering from malnutrition and
a shortage of medicine because of the embargo on oil sales
imposed shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Such reports in part prompted the Security Council to adopt
Resolution 986 that calls for $2 billion in controlled oil sales
over six months to buy humanitarian goods. Boutros-Ghali's office
is to implement it by devising plans with Iraq for monitoring oil
sales and distributing supplies.

Officially Iraq has not accepted Resolution 986 and has issued
harsh statements against it at the same time as its deputy prime
minister, Tareq Aziz, agreed to the talks. His exchange of
letters with Boutros-Ghali was devised in such a way that Aziz
could avoid mentioning 986 in his final acceptance of the
invitation to the talks.

Consequently, the UN chief will have to continue finding face-
saving formulas on issues particularly sensitive to Iraq. And at
the same time he will have to satisfy close scrutiny of the deal
by the United States, UN sources said.

"Without dignity, food and medicine are nothing," Iraq's UN
ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon, told Reuters Television. "So I hope
that the American and other envoys and representatives understand
this and get educated more about the culture and about the
traditions of the Iraqi and the Arab people."

Iraq says the resolution infringes on its sovereignty. Its
officials also fear the oil-for-food formula might eventually
substitute for a complete lifting of sanctions, an apprehension
diplomats say has some justification.

In particular, Iraq objects to about a third of the revenues
being earmarked for humanitarian supplies to Kurds in the north.

It also criticizes a provision that most of its oil flow
through the pipeline to Turkey rather than its Gulf port at Mina
al-Bakr.

Washington has been in the forefront in pushing Iraq to accept
the resolution and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
Madeleine Albright, has repeatedly blamed President Saddam
Hussein for not easing the effects of sanctions.

"He doesn't give a hoot about his own people," she said
earlier this month.

But at the same time, the United States was known to be
extremely strict in interpreting the resolution during previous
unsuccessful talks on the oil-for-food formula.
One Western diplomat believed the Clinton administration could
take no chances in having its position misinterpreted.
"Washington may have trouble explaining to the public that
sanctions are being eased but in reality they are being kept
intact at the same time," he said.