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Iraq Rejects British Sanctions Plan BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq will not accept a British proposal for a conditional suspension of U.N. sanctions because it does not provide for their ``immediate lifting,'' a senior official of the ruling Baath Party said in remarks published today. ``The circulation by both Britain and America of vicious plans at the (U.N.) Security Council is meant to prolong the unfair embargo on Iraq,'' Abdulghani Abdulghafur told a delegation of Russian legislators in Baghdad. Britain and the Netherlands have proposed that the sanctions be suspended once Iraq has answered the outstanding questions about its weapons of mass destruction. The proposal would also require Baghdad to adhere to strict financial controls to prevent its re-acquisition of such weapons. The sanctions were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. ``Iraq will accept nothing short of an immediate lifting of the sanctions,'' the official Iraqi News Agency quoted Abdulghafur as saying. Abdulghafur said any plan to break the stalemate in U.N.-Iraqi relations had to specify that Baghdad ``reserves the right to demand compensation'' for the damage inflicted in the U.S. and British airstrikes on Iraq in December. A member of the Iraqi regional command of the Baath Party, Abdulghafur is the most senior Iraqi official to respond to the British-Dutch initiative, which was first circulated on Tuesday. The U.N. Security Council has been seeking a formula to restore working relations with Baghdad since its weapons inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq on the eve of the airstrikes. Iraq has refused to allow the inspectors to return. Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, who is below Abdulghafur in the governing hierarchy, was quoted Thursday as saying that Baghdad would consider the plan, but was skeptical of British intentions. The five permanent members of the Security Council are divided on how to design a new policy on Iraq. Russia, China and France favor suspending sanctions on condition that Iraq cooperate with a new weapons monitoring regime. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Please do not sent emails with attached files to the list *** Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html ***