By: Noura Wazani
Iraq denounced a recent decision by the Gulf countries blaming the Iraqi government for the decade-old UN sanctions imposed on the country. The GCC’s decision came at a consultative summit held Saturday in Muscat, Oman.
Speaker of the Iraqi National Assembly Sadoun Hamadi stressed at a press conference Tuesday that his country has fulfilled all its commitments towards the Security Council’s resolutions.
Hamadi, who heads the Iraqi delegation to the 103rd Interparliamentary Union’s conference taking place in Amman, said “Iraq has fully implemented resolution 687; nevertheless sanctions have not been lifted.”
He said the UN embargo claims the lives of more than a million and half Iraqis. He also charged that the Security Council is not acting with a free will as it takes resolutions aimed at keeping Iraq under the sanctions.
The speaker added that putting the United Nations on the right track is “an urgent need to end the domination of one country on the organization.”
Responding to a question on the massive destruction weapons, Hamadi said they all have been destroyed in fulfillment of resolution 683, at the hands of the Iraqi authorities and UNISCOM staff.
But the speaker reiterated his country’s position regarding the newly formed UN disarmament committee.
“Iraq is not willing to deal with the new body as there was no need to set it up in the first place,” he said, adding “the decision is impractical, unimplementable and worse than the previous ones.” However he said Iraq is ready to accept the decision if it’s justly amended.
ON the Iraqi-US relation, Hamadi told reporters there is no dialogue going on between his government and Washington, but added there are contacts with the American civil society institutions, that call for lifting the sanctions.
Regarding the issue of the claimed Kuwaiti prisoners in Iraq, Hamadi voiced his country’s readiness to cooperate with the Red Cross, underlining that the organization “has asked Kuwait to deal with the issue as a humanitarian not a political one.”
“The number of missing Kuwaitis is no more than 600, and we have called on all institutions, including the UN and the Islamic Conference Organization to investigate the issue ,” he stressed.
The Kuwaiti delegation to the conference was due to hold another presser Tuesday, but decided to postpone it till Wednesday noon, according to Marzouq Muhanna, head of the Kuwaiti media team accompanying the parliamentarians.
Muhanna told Albawaba.com that the reason behind the postponement is that the previously set time of the press conference coincided with the opening of the Kuwaiti Trade Exhibition that was inaugurated in Amman by Jordan’s Queen Rania the same day – Albawaba.com.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
