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## Nachricht <19971029034136.14563.rocketmail@web1.rocketmail.com> vom 28.10.97 19:41 weitergeleitet
## Ursprung : I.Musa@Forum.gun.de
## Ersteller: issa@rocketmail.com (Issa Sarras)

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Saddam heads meeting on Iraq ties with U.N.
    
            BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
Tuesday considered suspending ties with U.N. arms inspectors as
Russia and France joined the United States in warning him
against freezing activities of the inspectors.
            ``President Saddam Hussein chaired a joint meeting of the
Revolutionary Command Council and the regional command of the
Arab Baath Socialist Party,'' the Iraqi news agency INA said.
            ``The meeting discussed recommendations approved by the
National Assembly concerning U.N. Security Council Resolution
1,134 which was taken with American pressure,'' it added.
            INA said the powerful Revolutionary Command Council (RCC)
would ``continue its meeting to discuss this issue and later
announce to the people what (decision) has been reached.''
            It did not say how long the meeting would last Tuesday but
said the RCC invited the speaker of the National Assembly or
parliament, Saadoun Hammadi, to brief the council on the
discussions that took place in the Assembly.
            Monday parliament recommended to the Iraqi leadership that
Iraq suspend ties with U.N. arms inspectors to counter a U.N.
Security Council resolution threatening more sanctions against
Iraq.
            The United States said Monday there would be serious
consequences if Iraq decided to suspend dealings with U.N.
weapons inspectors, who have not yet reported any difficulty in
carrying out their activities.
            ``Any measures (against Iraq) considered by the wicked
dictatorship of America would be of limited effect,'' the
newspaper Babel, owned by Saddam's eldest son Uday, said Tuesday
in a front-page editorial.
            The official al-Iraq daily blamed the recent U.N. resolution
on the United States.
            ``The aggressive American policy against Iraq has reached
such a serious stage that ignoring...its results would mean that
Iraqis accept committing suicide or waiting for slow death,''
al-Iraq said.
            In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokesman Valery Nesterushkin
told a news briefing: ``Moscow believes the constructive
cooperation of the Iraqi leadership with the special (U.N.)
commission is the only correct and realistic way that will lead
to a prompt lifting of sanctions. Any other approach is fraught
with negative consequences, above all for Iraq itself.''
            The warning was echoed in a French Foreign Ministry
statement which said Security Council resolutions ``must not be
questioned.''
            ``An approach in that sense, with the utmost firmness, was
made on Oct. 26 in Baghdad to warn Iraq of the risks it would be
taking by ending its cooperation with the special commission,''
the French statement said.
            France and Russia, along with China, Egypt and Kenya,
abstained when the 15-member Security Council adopted a
resolution Thursday threatening to impose a travel ban on Iraqi
officials alleged to have hindered U.N. inspectors in their
work.
            The resolution was originally drafted by the United States
and Britain after Richard Butler, head of the U.N. Special
Commission (UNSCOM) responsible for dismantling Iraq's dangerous
weapons, said Iraq had blocked his arms inspectors from several
Iraqi sites.
            A clean bill of health by the weapons inspectors is a
condition for lifting the sanctions on Iraqi exports, including
oil.
            Butler said Monday: ``I have seen reports of consideration
taking place in Baghdad on freezing cooperation with UNSCOM. I
can only repeat that such a conclusion from the resolution would
represent a serious mistake.''
            He told Reuters in New York that only last Thursday, while
the resolution was being adopted, his inspectors found three
empty warheads Iraq had previously denied having.
            The warheads had been rendered useless and were pointed out
to the inspectors by the Iraqis, he said. He said this was an
example of concealment as well as cooperation.
            ``It would be much better to go this way rather than to
claim jobs to have been done which were never done or to make
threats of freezing and non-cooperation,'' he said.
            Butler plans to travel to Iraq around Nov. 7 to 11 for a
routine two-monthly visit.
            His most recent half-yearly report to the Security Council
issued earlier this month said Iraq still needed to make a clean
breast of its clandestine arms program, particularly in the area
of biological weapons.
            U.N. weapons officials in Baghdad said Monday they had noted
nothing unusual in relations with the Iraqi side and inspections
and monitoring were going on normally.







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