Iraq accuses the US of trying to kneel down its people
Iraq-UN, Politics, 11/25/1998

Iraqi Deputy Premier Tariq Aziz has accused the US of seeking to bring Iraq down to its knees through threats to continue resorting to using of force against it.

In a speech he delivered on Tuesday in Baghdad before some 300 Arab poets and writers who are taking part in the 14th session of the al-Marbid poetry festival, Aziz added that Iraq is "waging a long battle of a different kind in which the US - Zionism seeks to insult Iraq and kneel it down under the threats of destroying it."

Aziz asserted that Iraq will continue its march "regardless of difficulties and sacrifices."

In New York, the UN Security Council's 15-member states agreed during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to extend the oil-for-food program for another six months. The Council will also vote today on an extension of the program which will enable Iraq to sell up to US $5.2 billion in crude oil every six months.

The oil for food program was put into actual realization on December 1996. It allows Iraq to buy basic foodstuffs against selling quantities of oil to alleviate consequences of the economic embargo. But because of the deterioration in oil prices and the bad condition of oil infrastructure Iraq was only able to sell as a cost of US $3 billion during the fourth phase of the accord which ends today.

Previous Stories:
  Iraqi opposition conference convened in London   (11/24/1998)
  Iraq: US and Britain ask for the impossible   (11/23/1998)
  No stability in UN-Iraq relations without progress toward embargo lifting   (11/20/1998)

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