MOSCOW, April 24: Russia on Thursday backed temporary suspension of 13-year-old sanctions against Iraq to ease the plight of its citizens, but said they could only be scrapped on the basis of existing U.N. resolutions.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov’s statement underscored changes in the positions of Russia and France on reconstruction as both had initially opposed any notion of lifting sanctions without an agreement to send U.N. arms inspectors back to Iraq.
France now calls for suspension of the sanctions, and its foreign ministry said Paris was ready to study a role for NATO in peacekeeping in Iraq.
But fundamental differences remained with Washington, which wants the immediate, unconditional rescinding of the sanctions.
Mr Ivanov said most countries wanted temporary measures put in place immediately to help Iraqis cope with the aftermath of invasion.
“Among the measures being examined is temporary suspension of sanctions regarding those goods which could be used to resolve humanitarian problems in Iraq,” he told reporters after talks with the foreign minister of Serbia-Montenegro.
“The vast majority of countries agree with this approach. It is therefore important now to come up with an appropriate decision. But I repeat that we are talking about a partial, temporary suspension of these sanctions.”
Scrapping the sanctions, imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, “must be resolved separately on the basis of U.N. resolutions adopted on this matter”, he said.
A senior US diplomat described Mr Ivanov’s comments as “a positive move”.
“We believe there is a case now, with the change of conditions, for proceeding directly to lifting rather than just suspension,” the diplomat said.
“So this discussion will have to continue. With respect to the U.N.’s role in this effort, we think there is scope to define a role, but we shouldn’t use the sanctions to somehow hold the Iraqi people and the reconstruction effort hostage.”
Russia and many other states fear that if sanctions are removed immediately, the United Nations will have no leverage over Iraq’s future.
They say the sanctions can only be lifted under a U.N. Security Council resolution allowing U.N. inspectors to return to determine whether Iraq has the banned arms that Washington used to justify its invasion.
Mr Ivanov made no reference to the return of inspectors. But Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, was explicit this week about linking an end to sanctions to confirmation by U.N. teams that Iraq has no illegal weapons.
Russia and France, veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, had opposed any resort to military action.
Both, along with rotating member Germany, had lobbied hard for the adoption last November of Resolution 1441 providing for the return of U.N. inspectors after a four-year break and giving Baghdad a “last chance” to prove it had no dangerous weapons.
But since US and British forces secured control over Baghdad, all three countries have striven to repair damage to relations with Washington caused by their prewar stance.
ICRC FEARS SABOTAGE: The slow return of water and power to Iraq’s second city of Basra could be the result of sabotage and not the post-war frenzy of looting, an official from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Thursday.
“This looks like sabotage. Who would steal parts of an electric transformer right inside the utility?” Andres Kruesi, head of mission for the ICRC in southern Iraq, said.
A humanitarian worker speculated the sabotage could be the work of Saddam Hussein loyalists keen to see the failure of British forces that routed his regime out of the southern city earlier this month.
Water and power supplies in Basra have improved in recent days but have not yet attained the levels of before the start of the US-led war on March 20.
“Looters caused more damage to utilities of water and power distribution and production than the air campaign did,” said Kruesi, who has been posted in Basra for a year-and-a-half.
“There are more looters than engineers,” he said.
Giorgio Nembrini, an ICRC expert on water and electricity, said the situation with the looters was “terrible”.
“They fire Kalashnikovs on utilities, they steal circuit-breakers,” he said.—Reuters / AFP
