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[casi] France Backs Immediate Suspension Of Sanctions



France Meets U.S. Halfway on Iraq Sanctions Lift
Reuters
Tuesday, April 22, 2003; 5:01 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15655-2003Apr22.html
By Evelyn Leopold and Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - In a surprise move, France on Tuesday backed an immediate suspension of 
U.N. sanctions against Iraq, meeting the United States half way in its drive to get the embargoes 
lifted.

But France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, said the U.N. oil-for-food program, which 
collects Iraq's oil revenues, should be kept under U.N. control for the time being but adjusted to 
Iraq's current needs.

"We should immediately suspend the sanctions," de la Sabliere said. "And about the oil-for-food 
program, we think there should be some adjustment to the program with a view to phasing out this 
program."

De la Sabliere said that financial and some trade sanctions needed to be suspended to enable Iraq 
to get back on its feet.

The Bush administration wants the sanctions lifted entirely and reacted coolly to the French 
proposals.

Unlike Russia, France did not insist that U.N. arms inspectors first verify Iraq no longer had 
weapons of mass destruction before there could be movement on sanctions.

"The lifting of the sanctions, which is, I think the objective of all of us, is linked to the 
certification of the disarmament of Iraq," de la Sabliere said. "Meanwhile we could suspend the 
sanctions and adjust the oil for food program with the idea of phasing it out."

The embargoes were imposed in August 1990 shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

The oil-for-food program, which comes up for renewal in June, is the key to Iraq's spending oil 
revenues for reconstruction after the U.S.-led invasion that deposed President Saddam Hussein's 
government. Oil proceeds are deposited in a U.N. escrow account out of which food, medicine and 
other civilian goods for Iraq are purchased.

The French ambassador made the comments to reporters after a closed-door Security Council meeting 
called to hear a briefing by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and discuss the Iraq crisis for 
the first time since the end of the war.

But the United States, in contrast to other council members including Britain, is cool to Blix, who 
will retire on June 30. Instead it is recruiting former U.N. inspectors from the United States, 
Britain and Australia to verify any discovery of banned weapons by the military.

'SANCTIONS LIFTED NOT SUSPENDED'

John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said sanctions should be lifted rather 
than suspended as soon as possible and "we look forward to working together with the delegation of 
France and other delegations toward that end."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was cooler, saying, "It may be a move sort of in the 
right direction, some beginning of understanding that the situation is different. But the situation 
is so much different that there is no reason for the sanctions any more."

Negroponte reaffirmed that the return of the U.N. inspection unit Blix heads, the U.N. Monitoring, 
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), was not foreseen.

"The coalition has assumed responsibility for disarming of Iraq," Negroponte said. "Now that there 
is a somewhat more permissive military environment the coalition effort will be substantially 
increased and expanded."

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Sergei Lavrov made it clear that Security Council resolutions tie the 
lifting or suspension of sanctions to verification by inspectors that Iraq had no weapons of mass 
destruction, or WMDs.

"We are not at all opposing lifting of sanctions. What we are insisting on is that Security Council 
resolutions must be implemented," Lavrov told reporters. But he said he was "ready to discuss the 
French proposal."

"We all want to know that there are no WMDs in Iraq, and the only way to verify it is to have 
inspectors in Iraq and to see for themselves and to report back to the Security Council. As soon as 
they deliver their report the sanctions could be lifted," he said.

With the Bush administration ignoring a U.N. role in postwar Iraq, Blix has been faulted by U.S. 
officials for not coming up with a "smoking gun" on Baghdad's dangerous weapons, a prime reason for 
the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"We may not be the only ones in the world who have credibility but I do think we have credibility 
for being objective and independent," Blix told reporters.

He denied he was in competition with whatever the United States planned on inspection in Iraq but 
noted that UNMOVIC had an enormous database with information on what had been said and found in 
Iraq in the past.

Blix said inspectors called in by the United States would be objective.

"But at the same time I am also convinced that the world and the Security Council (would) like to 
have the inspection and verification bear the imprint of independence and of some institution that 
is authorized by the whole international community," Blix said.

Copyright Reuters

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