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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (12094)	6/15/1999 5:38:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

When ideas fail, words come in very handy Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749 - 1832)

To: Machaon who wrote (12094)	6/15/1999 5:42:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

New York, June 15 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. proposed a suspension of United Nations sanctions against Iraq if Baghdad cooperates with a new team of UN arms inspectors for eight months. The sanctions, which include restrictions on oil exports, have been in place since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. They can't be lifted until the UN declares Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq last year stopped cooperating with an earlier UN weapons inspection program. ''I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that Iraq will go along with this,'' said Bill O'Grady, vice president and director of fundamental futures research at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in St. Louis. ''I can't imagine Iraq allowing in inspectors.'' Baghdad has ''adjusted to sanctions, and they think that if they lay low, sanctions will just end on their own'' O'Grady said. The U.K. proposal, which builds on plans outlined by the U.K. and the Netherlands last month, calls for the establishment of a new inspection team, the UN Commission on Inspection and Monitoring, said Andrew Lloyd, a spokesman for the U.K. mission to the UN. Sanctions would be suspended once Iraq has cooperated with the team for two consecutive 120-day periods. The proposal, which has been discussed with other members of the Security Council, also would be contingent on assurances that Baghdad isn't diverting money to banned weapons programs, Lloyd said. ''The suspension would be turned off if Iraq was not in compliance,'' he said. The previous arms inspection team, the UN Special Commission, left Iraq in December, just before U.S. and U.K. launched air strikes against the country because of its interference with the inspectors. Oil Exports Iraq has continued to export oil under a UN-sponsored accord that allows it to use oil revenue to buy food and medicine. Iraqi oil exports account for about 2.5 percent of world supply. The sixth phase of the ''oil for food'' program began on May 25. In authorizing the new round, the council said it would consider lifting the limit on oil sales if Iraq approaches the current ceiling of $5.2 billion worth of oil during a six-month period. The Security Council has sought a new approach to Iraq since the December bombing. A recent proposal by Russia, China and France called for oil sanctions to be suspended for an initial 100 days as soon as a new weapons monitoring team is set up in Iraq. The U.S. and U.K. have said they need more proof that Baghdad isn't building banned weapons. ''The key difference between this proposal and the French, Russian and Chinese one is that we are not proposing to suspend sanctions if Iraq does not comply fully,'' Lloyd said. ©1999 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Trademarks.