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.