Powell: Syria promised to have UN monitoring on the Iraqi oil pipeline
Syria-Iraq-USA, Politics, 2/28/2001

The US secretary of state Colin Powell on Monday announced after his visit to Damascus that Syria promised to put the Iraqi oil pipeline which transports the Iraqi oil under the monitoring of the UN in order to avoid any violations of the international sanctions imposed on Baghdad.

News reports quoted Powell who stopped in Brussels on his way back to Washington as saying that this measure will avail the UN to monitor the Iraqi oil exports and to put the revenues in the framework of the food for oil agreement.

He explained that the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has asserted to him three times during their talks which lasted for three hours that Damascus does not want to violate the sanctions imposed on Iraq which prevents Baghdad from exporting its oil outside the framework of the UN program which states to sell oil for humanitarian purposes.

Powell added that the Syrian President did not talk in details on how and when Syria will subject the oil pipelines to the US supervision.

He added that the sanctions system is reviewed every six months and therefor "we have to talk to the Syrians to know who they want to deal with this matter. Do they want to make immediately or they want to wait until the revision time in June?" The US Secretary of State added that the Syrian President said in reply to a question that his project states to put the Iraqi oil pipeline and its revenues under the same kind of inspection applied on other items in the sanctions system imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait ten years ago.

Powell continued that he considers President Bashar's announcement as very important " we passed this information to President George Bush, who expressed his satisfaction over it." Since several months Washington has doubts that Syria is importing illegally the Iraqi oil through this pipe at prices less than the prices of the market.

In this context a high ranking official at the US state department expected that Syria will not in open violate the UN sanctions for reasons, including the fact that it is nominated to occupy a seat at the UN Security Council in 2001.

Previous Stories:
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  Syria and the US, differences   (2/27/2001)
  Syria asks Powell to give interest to the peace process   (2/23/2001)
  Aziz and relations between Syria and Iraq   (2/19/2001)
  Syrian premier confers with Iraqi trade minister   (2/16/2001)
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