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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (51753)	5/20/2002 11:17:35 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Reuters Company News Russia urges Iraq to let weapons inspectors return By Dmitry Zhdannikov MOSCOW, May 20 (Reuters) - Russia, Iraq's best friend among the world's major powers, urged Baghdad on Monday to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return to help persuade the United Nations to lift sanctions. A Foreign Ministry official also said that last week's overhaul of U.N. sanctions against Iraq would ease bilateral trade -- a view Baghdad dismissed. The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved the biggest overhaul of sanctions in years last Tuesday in an effort to speed up the delivery of civilian goods for ordinary Iraqis suffering the impact of the 12-year-old sanctions. It maintained, however, a ban on military and dual-use technical goods. Experts from Russia and Iraq met in Moscow on Monday to try to boost bilateral trade, which has been shrinking since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. "It can't be worse than it used to be under the old regime, when almost all Russian contracts were put on hold. The new scheme will bring more predictability to our long-term deals," said Yuri Fedotov of the Russian Foreign Ministry. "The return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq would also open the way to solving many problems -- or in other words lifting sanctions," he added. Certification that Iraq has no programme of weapons of mass destruction is a condition for a suspension of U.N. sanctions against Baghdad, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Fedotov, head of the ministry's department on cooperation with foreign institutions, said the number of Russian deals with Iraq put on hold by the United Nations stood at $600 million. He said he expected the bulk of these to be unblocked soon as the new list of goods requiring review did not include such items as cars, civil helicopters or power stations. But Iraqi officials did not share Fedotov's optimism. "The U.N. resolution is not better or worse. It does not change anything and will prevent Russian firms from being fully operational in Iraq," said Iraq's Abdel Razak al-Hashimi, joint head of the bilateral trade, science and cultural commission. "How would you build a power plant if the U.N. committee bans the delivery of computers for it, for example?" Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein last week attacked the sanctions overhaul, saying it would stifle Iraq's growth. But he also said Baghdad would continue to cooperate with the U.N. oil-for-food scheme allowing it to spend part of its oil revenue on food and medicines. BILATERAL TRADE PASSIVELY STEADY Russian trade with Iraq almost doubled last year to some $2 billion, but is still far below the volumes reached under the Soviet Union. The trade is dominated by oil, Iraq granting the bulk of its exports to Russian firms in recognition of Moscow's political support. Iraq's deputy oil minister Hussein Salman al-Khadisi said Russian firms would get the same allocation of oil -- about 35-40 percent of Iraq's exports -- in the next six-month oil-for-food phase despite rumours that Baghdad might cut the quota to punish Moscow for supporting revised sanctions. He added that Iraq was also considering granting new contracts to Russian firms to drill up to 100 new oil wells in addition to the 100 already signed for. However, he said he saw no progress in huge oil production deals signed years ago with Russian firms that have been put on hold due to sanctions. Iraq blames the sanctions for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and has often accused the United States and Britain of holding up approval of humanitarian supplies. biz.yahoo.com