IRAQ: U.N. Security Council Agrees to Disagree on Kurdish Crisis

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 6 1996 (IPS) - The U.N. Security Council painted a vivid picture of its internal split on Iraq Friday when it gave up on its efforts to forge a consensus document on Baghdad’s raid last week on the Kurdish city of Arbil.

After three days of intense haggling, the 15-member Council failed either to condemn Iraq’s attack last Saturday on the northern Iraqi city, to comment on subsequent U.S. air strikes against Iraq, or to agree on the fate of a separate humanitarian oil deal for Iraq.

British Ambassador Stephen Gomersall, whose country Tuesday kicked off a drive to win Council support for a resolution condemning the Arbil raid, confirmed that the 15 nations had ended discussions on a response without any agreement.

He said that the condemnation was dropped even though “a clear majority of the Council would support such a resolution.”

One British diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS that only Russia, which holds veto power on the Council, refused to back a resolution demanding Iraq’s withdrawal from Arbil and calling for a resumption of talks between warring Kurdish factions.

“Russia made its point quite clear that it would veto,” he said. “We tried to reach a compromise, but we couldn’t find one.”

Another veto-wielding permanent Council member, China, also objected to the British proposal, and suggested an alternate which indirectly criticised U.S. air strikes against Iraqi targets Tuesday and Wednesday — a bid unlikely to win Washington’s support.

For critics of the Baghdad government, the Council’s disarray sent a message to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that he could flout the world body with apparent impunity. Iraq attacked Arbil, the main city of semi-autonomous Kurdistan, despite U.N. warnings against such a move.

“It’s unfortunate that at this stage the Council was not able to speak on the subject,,” a visibly angry U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said Friday. “This just shows that sometimes the Council is not the most effective way to deal with this (crisis).”

Gomersall added that, even though U.S. and U.N. sources both have reported that Iraqi government troops have withdrawn from Arbil, the crisis remains a major worry.

“We are concerned that Iraq is still involved in the executions of INC and PUK personnel,” he said, referring to the anti-Hussein Iraqi National Congress and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who until last week had operated from bases in Arbil.

Yet other diplomats disputed the idea that the Security Council’s divisions would assure Baghdad that the United Nations was unlikely to act against it in the future.

“If this decision was not efficient, it was wise,” argued Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov. He contended that an efficiently working Security Council does not mean simply “agreeing on paper.”

But Moscow’s adamant refusal to accept any Council criticism of Iraq — even though such criticism was heavily watered down over three days of debate — is a rare break from the post-Cold War consensus that has marked U.N. conflict resolution.

As many diplomats here confided in recent days, this has been the first time in years that the United States and Britain have failed to win U.N. approval for a key international initiative.

Not all the diplomats are unhappy with that situation, either. “They have been taking the United Nations for granted,” one African envoy said.

The United States irritated many governments with its air strikes against Iraq’s southern air defences this week, especially because the strikes punished Baghdad for conducting an offensive against opponents within its own borders and at the behest of one of the feuding Kurdish parties.

The U.S. position was not helped by Turkey’s recent military offensives, including a Thursday night air raid, into northern Iraq against the leftist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The Turkish strikes and Iran’s alleged support for the PUK have undermined Washington’s position that Baghdad should be punished for sending ground troops into Arbil.

Washington’s unilateral decision to retaliate with cruise missile attacks and expand the “no-fly zone” in southern Iraq compounded its other public relations problems here. Washington’s solitary but adamant opposition to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s election to a second term and its failure to pay arrears which make the United States the U.N. biggest deadbeat by far have not done much for its image in the world body.

And Washington’s failure to get a resolution against Iraq suggests that Baghdad may yet be able to proceed with its “oil- for-food” deal that would allow it to resume limited oil sales after six years of a punishing U.N. embargo. The earnings are to be used to supply humanitarian aid to Iraq’s long-suffering population.

Although progress on the deal was suspended this week because of the fighting in and around Arbil, a finding by Boutros-Ghali that the situation in Iraq has calmed down enough to send U.N. monitors to Iraq to ensure that Baghdad complies with the conditions of the accord.

If that happens, Saddam Hussein could win not only de facto control over the formerly opposition-held Arbil, but also a deal that would allow Iraq to sell one billion dollars of oil every 90 days to buy humanitarian goods.