Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
| ||||||||||||
France Presents Iraq Embargo Plan France Presents Iraq Embargo Plan
By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
January 13,1999France has outlined a proposal to ease the oil embargo on Iraq while establishing a monitoring program to ensure Baghdad isn't rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction, diplomats said.
The Security Council's five permanent members -- France, Russia, China, the United States and Britain -- met for more than an hour to discuss the proposal, which France has floated informally for weeks but presented on paper for the first time Tuesday, the diplomats said.
France may present its plan to the full 15-member council on Wednesday, and discussions could begin as early as Thursday, the diplomats said.
``We are in the process of continuing our discussions on Iraq with our partners,'' French Ambassador Alain Dejammet said after the meeting. ``It's an ongoing process between the members of the Security Council.''
The proposal is intended to resume the U.N. oversight of Iraq's weapons programs that was halted after the United States and Britain launched airstrikes on Iraq from Dec. 16-19. U.N. weapons inspectors pulled out of Iraq just before the strikes began, and Iraq has said they won't be allowed to return.
Reaction to the French proposal in the meeting was muted, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Deputy U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh refused to speak to reporters afterwards. But the United States has said it won't allow U.N. resolutions to be bypassed.
Washington could veto any attempt to force a resolution backing such an effort, but could also find itself isolated diplomatically by doing so.
The United States has been stung by allegations that it used the U.N. Special Commission, which carries out weapons searches, to spy for its own policy goals. The State Department has denied it used U.N. information for anything beyond the disarmament goals of UNSCOM.
Confronted with such charges and Iraq's pledge to keep inspectors out, chief arms expert Richard Butler has acknowledged that the council must devise a new approach to resume checks on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
According to U.N. resolutions that ended the Persian Gulf War, the U.N. oil embargo on Iraq can be lifted only once inspectors report that Iraq is free of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and the long-range missiles used to deliver them.
The resolutions say an ongoing monitoring system would be established once Iraq is disarmed to check that it isn't rebuilding its weapons programs.
But the French are proposing the council immediately shift UNSCOM's work from active disarmament work to monitoring Iraq's known weapons sites, diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
France is also eager to lift the oil embargo that has been in place since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 so that French companies can develop the nation's vast oil potential.
France has said it wants to make sure the money Iraq could earn from the easing of the sanctions would be monitored to make sure it isn't used to rebuild weapons programs.
U.N. weapons inspectors are already preparing scenarios to present to the council focusing on how an expansive, long-term monitoring program could work, U.N. officials have said. The scenarios account for the fact that Iraq wouldn't be 100 percent disarmed.
Butler told reporters in Washington on Monday that the system would have to be ``bigger in scope, range, staffing,'' than a limited monitoring plan in place in parts of Iraq since 1994.
Along with France, Russia and China are eager to lift the embargo on Iraq and restructure UNSCOM. Moscow has repeatedly called for Butler's ouster; he hasn't said whether he will stay on the job beyond the end of his term June 30.
