Saddam warns of dead end
Iraq, Politics, 7/22/1997

The UN sanctions committee is confident that a new plan for humanitarian supplies to be distributed in Iraq can be approved next week.

Portuguese diplomat Ana Martins Gomes, briefing journalists after a sanctions committee meeting, noted that UN chief Kofi Anan would agree to the new six-month plan after consulting the Iraqi officials.

"This is a matter to be dealt with by the Iraqis and the secretary-general, but we are certainly confident and hopeful that it will be solved next week," she said. Portugal chairs the 15-member committee.

Iraq announced in June that it would suspend a temporary exemption to UN sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait until a new distribution plan was done.

But Martins Gomes stressed that for 15-member committee, "There is no link between the resumption of the oil exports and the distribution plan."

Iraq sent a new letter to the Security Council on July 17 to accuse the committee's UN representative of deliberately holding up the approval of contracts for food and medicine.

President Saddam Hussien insisted on July 18 that the United Nations respect Iraqi sovereignty in its searches for banned weapons of mass destruction and warned that relations could reach a "dead end."

"There is no way stabilize the relations between the special commission of the security council and Iraq's representatives unless the commission respects Iraq's sovereignty," he said in a nationwide address.

The president accused the special commission (UNSCOM), which is tasked with disarming post-war Iraq, of "provocation and manipulation."

"The relations between Iraq and the Security council will not stabilize unless the security council respects Iraq's sovereignty and national security," he said.

Saddam charged that the Security Council has "shirked its responsibility" to lift the UN sanctions, in force since Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"Iraq fulfilled its obligations under the security council resolution and has fully applied them. It is utterly unacceptable that the security council should not acknowledge these sacrifices by Iraq and lift the embargo."

To avoid "a dead end" in ties with the security council, he urged the world body "to take measures which could convince us that it has actually stated to fulfil its obligations, even if this would lead the US to exercise its veto."

The security council last month threatened new sanctions against Iraq unless it cooperates fully with UNSCOM, following a series of incidents when weapons inspections were blocked.

Iraq, while pledging its cooperation, has protested that the searchs are being used to spy for the United Sates, which led a multinational coalition to boot Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf war.

Saddam Hussein called on July 18 for an Arab summit "to save Palestine and Jerusalem" and said it should take precedence over the rifts caused by the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"We must not allow the Zionists to weaken the Arabs and the Palestinians," Saddam said.

In a bid for a return to the Arab fold at a time when the peace process is deadlocked and positions are hardening, he outlined a plan "to save Palestine and Jerusalem" and called for a summit solely on the Palestinian issue.

Saddam, whose country has been ostracized since its invasion of Kuwait, proposed "official Arab meetings to discuss a single subject, the Palestinian question... free of rivalry and accusation."

"If the meeting should be held at the summit level, only presidents and kings should take part, or just with their foreign ministers," he said.

Saddam called for Arab states to overcome their differences for the sake
of holding such a summit.

"It should not be subordinated to an inter-Arab-reconciliation," he
said.

Arab leaders "should not set reconciliation as a condition for their taking part. Let those who want to reconcile do so, and those who want to stay angry, let them," said the Iraqi president.

To avoid trouble, he suggested that the Arab meetings not be filmed or recorded and that the time frame should be kept open.

A summit would "support Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, whatever his qualities or his errors," said Saddam, who rejects the autonomy accords which the Palestinians have struck with the Jewish state.

As for Arafat, he should "take advantage of puny entity he has obtained to mobilize the Palestinians... and weaken the Zionist entity," Saddam said, referring in the self-rule territories.

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