IRAQ-UN: Tension Climbs as Iraq Rebuffs Envoys

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 7 1997 (IPS) - Iraq’s hardline stance with the United States brought a sharp rebuke from President Bill Clinton Friday and a warning from the United Nations that its diplomatic intervention may soon end.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said Friday that the previouysly announced move to expel U.S. investigators from a U.N. weapons monitoring force would stand. Six of persons involved work for the 100-member U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) office in Baghdad and three U.N envoys made a special trip to urged Iraq this week to urge Baghdad to drop its demand.

Aziz has accused the U.S. inspectors of spying on sensitive Iraqi sites but he said that any plans to make them leave would be suspended as long as the current diplomatic process lasts. Aziz intends to leave for New York next week to take his concerns to the U.N. Security Council.

The Iraqi rebuff, however, prompted a quick response from Clinton, who repeated the U.S. threat to consider a range of measures, including military force, if Baghdad proceeds with the expulsions.

“Nothing can be ruled out in the effort to force Iraq to cooperate,” Clinton said Friday.

The rejection of the U.N. diplomatic initiative, which aimed at allowing U.S. participation and UNSCOM activity to return to normal, has placed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a tricky position. Having pushed for sending three envoys to Iraq at a time when Washington was adamant that there be no negotiations, Annan could be near the end of his personal involvement.

“Should the Iraqi government not respond positively to the message carried by his team, the Secretary-General would have no choice but to terminate the intervention initiated with the dispatch of the team, and the matter would revert to the Security Council,” the United Nations said in a statement from Santiago, Chile, where Annan was travelling.

With the rebuff on Friday, Annan now is leaning toward ending the diplomatic effort and turning the matter over to the 15-member Security Council, according to U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard.

First Annan will meet with his team — diplomats Lakhdar Brahimi of Algeria, Jan Eliasson of Sweden and Emilio Cardenas of Argentina — to decide on a course of action when the Council takes up the matter again on Monday, Eckhard said. The three diplomats were not entirely discouraged by their three-day trip to Iraq, during which time they held five meetings with Aziz and other senior officials.

Brahimi, the team’s leader, said the talks were held “in a very good atmoshere” and that the team would bring back to the Council a series of Iraqi concerns about the course of UNSCOM’s work over the past seven years.

“One of the reaons for our trip here…was to contribute to a lowering of tension and the lowering of the very high temperature of the region,” Eliasson said at a press conference in Baghdad. “I think that during the course of these days, we have seen a little bit of the lowering of that temperature. We will of course hope that this continue.”

Eliasson added that Iraq has at least maintained “a hope that there is a continued process” for resolving the dispute peacefully.

So far, however, the accomplishments of U.N. diplomacy have been limited. For now, the six U.S. nationals remain with UNSCOM, but Iraq continues to block any inspections that include U.S. members – which has resulted, Eckhard said, in the inability of any monitoring team to go about its tasks.

UNSCOM Chair Richard Butler cancelled two scheduled flights by U-2 spy planes, to have been conducted by the United States, when Iraqi officials warned that they believed the planes would provide data for a future U.S. military strike. But Baghdad remains on alert for the possibility of the first major U.S. attack on Iraq since 1993.

“Our anti-aircraft defenses are up,” Aziz warned Friday.

Even the question of Aziz’s trip remains muddled, with the U.S. State Department warning that it would not grant him a visa if the Iraqi official planned to stall the UNSCOM dispute further. Eckhard responded that the United States, as the host of the United Nations, agrees to allow the travel of any official visiting the U.N. headquarters.

Some U.N. diplomats still see hope for a peaceful resolution of the standoff, at a time when many key Security Council members – notably Russia and France – want to avoid any escalation that would either result in an attack or in the strengthening of the seven-year U.N. embargo on Iraq.

“There is one particular area where it is conceivable that we could make progress,” Cardenas said. Iraqi objections about the delivery of humanitarian aid – through a one-billion-dollar “oil- for-food” deal every 90 days which is monitored by the United Nations – could be dealt with by the Council next week, and could allow “a chance to improve the situation,” he said.

Eliasson added that the best hope would be if Iraq first revokes its expulsion threat and then discusses its problems with UNSCOM and U.N. sanctions. “This would allow a more relaxed way to continue these efforts, with a deeper understanding of these grievances, which in some instances are legitimate,” he said.