U.N. Restricts Iraqi Imports
NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2002
U.N. Restricts Iraqi Imports
NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2002
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council on Monday approved tightening of restrictions on Iraqi imports of goods that could have dual civilian-military use.
The vote was 13-0. Russia and Syria abstained.
Under the measure, the council must review the list and procedures for its implementation 90 days after its 12:01 a.m. Tuesday start and before the end of the 180-day phase of the oil-for-food program. The single-page resolution contains a dozen pages of annex listing goods requiring approval.
Britain, Bulgaria and the United States sponsored the measure. Washington pressed for adoption during intense negotiations that extended into the usually tranquil period between Christmas and New Year's Day.
Nations can more quickly process contracts on all goods that are not on the list. Instead of being reviewed by a council committee set up to monitor sanctions against Baghdad, the contracts are processed directly through the U.N. Office of the Iraq Program, which oversees the humanitarian oil-for-food operation begun in 1996. Iraq has been under sanctions since Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The council also decided to conduct regular, thorough reviews and requested the sanctions committee to review the list and the implementation procedures as part of its regular agenda and recommend necessary additions or deletions from the list and the procedures.
Deputy U.S Ambassador James Cunningham said Washington was pleased with the vote.
"It meets the goals we set for ourselves when we first brought this issue before the council," he told reporters outside the council. "We've done the job we set out to do. We've done it well within the timeframe we envisaged, I guess 27 days or days ago."
Addressing the abstentions, he said, "We think the resolution should have been adopted by consensus, but we are quite satisfied with the overwhelming majority.
"Iraq should not take any particular message from the fact that it wasn't adopted by consensus."
British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said London was "very pleased that we've now achieved this review that has taken a lot of work our experts, a lot of detailed negotiation. It was a pity we couldn't get it through by consensus, but this is, as you all well know, quite a difficult area. There were some particular and subjective considerations from some delegations."
Saying he wanted to "point out what we were about" in the measure, Greenstock said, "The original purpose of this list was set out in [an earlier resolution] in the middle of 2001, and it was clear that what we wanted was adjustments to the sanctions regime that both made it easier to deliver humanitarian goods to Iraq and improve the controls of those items that might possibly be diverted to material use.
"We've done both of those things in this resolution," he said. "We made it easier for the secretariat to be clear about what items need to be reviewed. Remember this is a review list not a denial list. We've improved some of the controls on those items, particularly in the transport area which might be diverted."
London's envoy said some parties insisted some of those items would not be diverted.
Moscow Wants to Keep Abetting Iraq
Russia, a manufacturer and supplier to Iraq of heavy-duty trucks, did not want to see restrictions imposed on them.
Ambassador Sergei Lavrov, claiming concern over the "uninterrupted delivery to Iraq of major humanitarian goods," told members of the council the resolution "provides for the introduction of a number of adjustments in carrying out humanitarian deliveries to Iraq, changes which pertain to the GRL and procedures for its application."
He said Russia didn't feel limitations on large trucks were valid. The United States said they could be used for carrying missiles.
"We are talking about vehicles for assuring normal civilian transportation," Moscow's envoy said. "We are seriously concerned about information which has recently come to the U.N. secretariat to the effect that in the committee on sanctions there is a blocking of virtually all requests made from Iraq for truck transport and equipment. "This trend is having a very negative impact on the possibility of the full distribution of humanitarian goods to the Iraqi population and is complicating an already difficult situation in areas such as water supply, electrical energy, irrigation and oil refining," Lavrov said.
His nation decided not to object because "the goods review list is not a denial list but only provides for the adoption of well-pondered and valid, and this includes from the humanitarian standpoint, decisions on specific contracts in the committee on sanctions."
No More Viruses
List revisions included large quantities of antibiotics, atropine, an antidote for nerve gas and biological agents, and related materials, "auto injectors that exceed the established consumption rate," sterilization equipment, viruses and hantaviruses, several stainless steel products, test equipment, global positioning system jammers and other radio equipment.
When asked to expand on auto injectors, Cunningham said: "I'm not an expert in auto injectors, but I think one can imagine that there might be some hospital or other uses for them, but the preponderance is, in large quantities, would be for military use. The established levels are something that need to be established.
"There are several ways one can do that, either statistically on the basis of what a normal range of consumption is for a population of a certain number under certain conditions or based on historical record of what has been consumed specifically in Iraq and that is a task that now has to be, it is a technical job, that needs to be done," Washington's envoy said.
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council on Monday approved tightening of restrictions on Iraqi imports of goods that could have dual civilian-military use.
The vote was 13-0. Russia and Syria abstained.
Under the measure, the council must review the list and procedures for its implementation 90 days after its 12:01 a.m. Tuesday start and before the end of the 180-day phase of the oil-for-food program. The single-page resolution contains a dozen pages of annex listing goods requiring approval.
Britain, Bulgaria and the United States sponsored the measure. Washington pressed for adoption during intense negotiations that extended into the usually tranquil period between Christmas and New Year's Day.
Nations can more quickly process contracts on all goods that are not on the list. Instead of being reviewed by a council committee set up to monitor sanctions against Baghdad, the contracts are processed directly through the U.N. Office of the Iraq Program, which oversees the humanitarian oil-for-food operation begun in 1996. Iraq has been under sanctions since Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The council also decided to conduct regular, thorough reviews and requested the sanctions committee to review the list and the implementation procedures as part of its regular agenda and recommend necessary additions or deletions from the list and the procedures.
Deputy U.S Ambassador James Cunningham said Washington was pleased with the vote.
"It meets the goals we set for ourselves when we first brought this issue before the council," he told reporters outside the council. "We've done the job we set out to do. We've done it well within the timeframe we envisaged, I guess 27 days or days ago."
Addressing the abstentions, he said, "We think the resolution should have been adopted by consensus, but we are quite satisfied with the overwhelming majority.
"Iraq should not take any particular message from the fact that it wasn't adopted by consensus."
British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said London was "very pleased that we've now achieved this review that has taken a lot of work our experts, a lot of detailed negotiation. It was a pity we couldn't get it through by consensus, but this is, as you all well know, quite a difficult area. There were some particular and subjective considerations from some delegations."
Saying he wanted to "point out what we were about" in the measure, Greenstock said, "The original purpose of this list was set out in [an earlier resolution] in the middle of 2001, and it was clear that what we wanted was adjustments to the sanctions regime that both made it easier to deliver humanitarian goods to Iraq and improve the controls of those items that might possibly be diverted to material use.
"We've done both of those things in this resolution," he said. "We made it easier for the secretariat to be clear about what items need to be reviewed. Remember this is a review list not a denial list. We've improved some of the controls on those items, particularly in the transport area which might be diverted."
London's envoy said some parties insisted some of those items would not be diverted.
Moscow Wants to Keep Abetting Iraq
Russia, a manufacturer and supplier to Iraq of heavy-duty trucks, did not want to see restrictions imposed on them.
Ambassador Sergei Lavrov, claiming concern over the "uninterrupted delivery to Iraq of major humanitarian goods," told members of the council the resolution "provides for the introduction of a number of adjustments in carrying out humanitarian deliveries to Iraq, changes which pertain to the GRL and procedures for its application."
He said Russia didn't feel limitations on large trucks were valid. The United States said they could be used for carrying missiles.
"We are talking about vehicles for assuring normal civilian transportation," Moscow's envoy said. "We are seriously concerned about information which has recently come to the U.N. secretariat to the effect that in the committee on sanctions there is a blocking of virtually all requests made from Iraq for truck transport and equipment. "This trend is having a very negative impact on the possibility of the full distribution of humanitarian goods to the Iraqi population and is complicating an already difficult situation in areas such as water supply, electrical energy, irrigation and oil refining," Lavrov said.
His nation decided not to object because "the goods review list is not a denial list but only provides for the adoption of well-pondered and valid, and this includes from the humanitarian standpoint, decisions on specific contracts in the committee on sanctions."
No More Viruses
List revisions included large quantities of antibiotics, atropine, an antidote for nerve gas and biological agents, and related materials, "auto injectors that exceed the established consumption rate," sterilization equipment, viruses and hantaviruses, several stainless steel products, test equipment, global positioning system jammers and other radio equipment.
When asked to expand on auto injectors, Cunningham said: "I'm not an expert in auto injectors, but I think one can imagine that there might be some hospital or other uses for them, but the preponderance is, in large quantities, would be for military use. The established levels are something that need to be established.
"There are several ways one can do that, either statistically on the basis of what a normal range of consumption is for a population of a certain number under certain conditions or based on historical record of what has been consumed specifically in Iraq and that is a task that now has to be, it is a technical job, that needs to be done," Washington's envoy said.
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
All rights reserved. |
