IRAQ: Oil Talks Bog Down at United Nations

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 1996 (IPS) - Negotiations intended to pave the way for Iraq to renew limited oil sales appear to be bogged down after a week.

Sources tell IPS the Iraqi government and a U.N. team led by Under-Secretary-General Hans Corell have not resolved any of the myriad sensitive issues that have prevented Baghdad from accepting a year-old U.N. offer for restricted sales.

The deal, approved by the U.N. Security Council last May in the form of Resolution 986, would allow Baghdad to sell one billion dollars of oil every 90 days and to use the money to pay for humanitarian aid for the country.

Iraq, which is in the grips of a five-year-old U.N. embargo, rejects several of the deal’s terms as violations of its sovereignty.

In particular, the Iraqi government has chafed at the idea that it must send most of the oil through pipelines that pass through Turkey.

Saddam Hussein’s government also resents terms requiring that at least some 15 percent of the proceeds garnered through the oil sales go to the country’s north, where the United States has helped set up a semi-autonomous Kurdish state.

One senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the talks have so far focused on problems over distributing food and aid paid for by the planned oil sales. So far, the source said, there is no agreement on distribution.

The Iraqi delegation, led by Ambassador Abdul-Amir al-Anbari, has been at the United Nations since Feb. 6. Contrary to reports, the delegation shows no signs of preparing to leave for home.

“We have had no information that talks were rounding up yesterday or today,” U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said Wednesday. Instead, he contended, the Iraqi and U.N. teams are likely to keep discussions going in New York until an agreement is reached.

“The delegations continued their discussion” Wednesday morning, Fawzi said. “They are now discussing technical issues on all aspects.”

Those talks are expected to deal with the nuts and bolts of the oil deal: how the United Nations will monitor the oil sales and the distribution of revenues to ensure that the money goes to Iraq’s needy.

James Rubin, spokesman for the U.S. mission here, said officials have found the talks to be “detailed and fruitful.” But he added that the United Nations was still awaiting responses from Iraq on several issues.

But the United Nations is staying silent on what, if any, progress has been reached towards an oil deal. And Iraqi sources, although praising the cordial nature of the talks, have also been quiet on what they have gained.

Within Iraq itself, the official media has raised hopes that a deal is near. In a country hit hard by a U.N. embargo imposed since Aug. 1990, rumours of an impending deal have sent the Iraqi dinar soaring, and have sparked a burst in consumption.

Those rumours have also frightened some of Iraq’s opponents. Israeli diplomats this week warned that they did not feel confident that U.N. monitoring of the oil deal would be rigourous enough to prevent Hussein’s regime from rebuilding its weapons stockpiles.

Before the talks began, diplomats here were unsure whether the United States, an Israeli ally and key Security Council power, would support the oil-for-food deal, or undermine it.

On the one hand, President Bill Clinton cannot afford to ease pressure on Baghdad during an election year for fear of looking weak. On the other, Iraqi oil sales — by boosting world oil exports and lowering oil prices — could spark economic growth.

U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright affirmed Washington’s continuing support for the resolution, which was drafted largely by the United States after years of criticism that the U.N. sanctions were harming Iraqi civilians.

“I think resolution 986 has been drafted very carefully,” she said this week. “It addresses humanitarian needs in Iraq.”

Iraqi acceptance of the 986 deal, U.S. officials argued, would pave the way for humanitarian aid to be sent into Iraq on terms stringent enough to prevent any profiteering by Hussein’s government.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iraq’s government has spent so little money on the poor — and so much on protecting Iraq’s elite from the pain of sanctions — that any money garnered from an oil-for-food deal would quickly be used up on the nation’s neediest peoples.

At the same time, the official said, 986 is so precisely written that there is little chance Baghdad can use the limited suspension of the embargo to buy weapons covertly or threaten its neighbours.

Just to be safe, however, the United States is prodding the Security Council to pass another resolution to close any loopholes from the low-level trade in humanitarian goods Iraq now conducts. U.N. weapons monitors have warned that Baghdad has imported weapons parts through its border with Jordan in recent months, under the guise of humanitarian aid.