China has expressed concern over the humanitarian situation in Iraq and supports efforts to solve the deadlock over the issue of UN sanctions against Baghdad, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan made the remarks in a letter to the foreign ministers of fellow permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- the United States, Russia, France and Britain -- and to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said.
"He expressed concern over the present humanitarian situation in Iraq and supported the efforts made by the UN secretary general to break the deadlock in the Iraqi question," Zhang said.
"He appealed to the parties concerned to show their political willingness so as to find a way out of the stalemate on the Iraqi question," she added.
Tang's letter was meant to inform the recipients about Iraqi Vice Premier Tareq Aziz's visit to China in late November.
"Iraq should take measures to effect the removal of sanctions," President Jiang Zemin then told his Iraqi visitor according to Chinese television.
Iraq has been under crippling UN sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait in a bid to force it to comply with UN resolutions aimed at curbing its weapons of mass destruction.
Aziz said in Moscow over the weekend that Iraq was mulling a proposal from Annan to discuss the return of UN weapons inspectors, who were evacuated in 1998 on the eve of a British-US air offensive against the country – BEIJING (AFP)
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