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Note the claim that : "even if Iraq turned down the resolution, its passage would immediately lift the cap on oil sales and allow the consideration of removing any limit on the spare parts Iraq could import" Gabriel. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Friday December 10 8:52 PM ET UN Council Expected to Vote on Iraqi Policy Monday by Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council renewed for six months the Iraqi ``oil-for-food'' program on Friday and scheduled a vote on a more crucial resolution outlining its overall policy toward Baghdad. British ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the current council president, said he was calling a vote for Monday afternoon on the resolution that would restart U.N. arms inspections in Baghdad and lead to a suspension of trade sanctions imposed more than nine years ago. The United States and Britain had pressed for a vote on Saturday but China said it needed further instructions, hinting it would use its veto power to kill the draft if the meeting were not delayed. Greenstock, however, appeared fairly certain Russia and China, who have criticized the resolution, on Monday would not kill the draft by exercising their veto power. ``I am confident that this is a good text and should get support from a maximum number of council members and will be carried,'' he said. To be adopted, a resolution in the 15-nation council needs nine votes and no veto from the five permanent council members: the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia. The five powers also can allow a resolution to pass by abstaining. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright conferred on Friday by telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on the comprehensive resolution that has been under negotiations for at least eight months. Poker Game To Continue U.S. envoy Peter Burleigh, acknowledging substantial differences existed, said he expected the diplomatic poker game to continue over the weekend. ``The psychology of that is that it puts a lot of pressure on all sides because the question is 'does one compromise further on certain issues or not,''' Burleigh said. Russia's U.N. ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, said the final decision would be taken in Moscow. He criticized the text for being imprecise and said compromises with his delegation had ''not been sufficient.'' France, which in the past had approved the draft resolution, is not sure whether it will abstain or vote in favor. Its delegation has said repeatedly Paris wanted compromises to bring about a positive Russian vote. Earlier on Friday all 15 council members, as expected, voted in favor of the oil-for-food resolution. It permits Baghdad to sell $5.26 billion worth of oil every six months to buy food, medicine and other goods for its people suffering under the sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Iraqi officials have said they would resume oil exports once the six-month extension was granted. Baghdad had stopped shipping oil on Nov. 24 to protest a two-week Security Council extension of the program on Nov. 19, saying it needed a six-month rollover to plan properly. The council on Dec. 3 extended the program for one more week and on Friday renewed the plan until June 8. The stopgap measures were an attempt by the United States and Britain to accelerate work on the broader resolution, which would make parts of the oil-for-food plan obsolete and would remove the cap on how much oil Iraq could export. Comprehensive Resolution Introduced Greenstock formally introduced the comprehensive resolution on Friday but said there might be further changes. Baghdad is expected to reject the document initially and argue that the document moves it no closer to a lifting of the sanctions, which have ruined its economy and infrastructure and the health and lifestyles of its people. But even if Iraq turned down the resolution, its passage would immediately lift the cap on oil sales and allow the consideration of removing any limit on the spare parts Iraq could import. It also would streamline procedures for the importing of food, medicine, educational materials and agricultural equipment. The council has additionally promised to consider investments by foreign oil companies in Iraqi oil fields -- but not until the sanctions are suspended. Moscow has objected for weeks to the conditions that would trigger the suspension of sanctions. Lavrov had wanted to require Iraq to show progress in implementing key disarmament tasks rather than completing them, as the United States and Britain want, diplomats said. This section of the resolution was deliberately ambiguous so all sides could agree. But diplomats said Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering told Lavrov that Washington would only accept the hard-line interpretation. If Russia, China and France abstained, the resolution would pass but would be weakened and signal to Iraq there was a lack of support by the council's key members. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full archive and list instructions are available from the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi