Unremitting sanctions

At its closed session, the Security Council concluded that there was no consensus among the 15 members to modify the sanctions regime. It adjourned an afternoon session to hear an unprecedented personal appeal from Iraqi Foreign Minister Said El-Sahhaf to lift the embargo. El Sahhaf reiterated that Baghdad no longer held any weapons of mass destruction. He also reassured the Council that Iraq would abide by the terms of the agreement signed with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Baghdad last February. However, El Sahhaf's appeal was rejected.

The Security Council imposed sweeping sanctions in 1990 after Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

After a US-led forces drove the Iraqis from Kuwait, the council agreed to maintain the sanctions until UN inspectors certified that Iraq had destroyed all long-range missiles and chemical, nuclear and biological weapons.

A review to the sanctions is usually held every 60 days, but the process was suspended last June after Iraq obstructed weapons inspections.

Monday's review is the first since Iraq signed its deal with Annan to open all sites, including presidential compounds, to UN arms inspectors.

During a heated session, members of the Security Council questioned chief UN inspector Richard Butler on his latest six-month report. In his report, Butler stated that the standoff over presidential sites made it virtually impossible to determine if Iraq had complied with disarmament orders.

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that it has found no evidence that Iraq was still secretly constructing nuclear weapons.

Based on that finding, the US came under strong pressure from France, Russia and China who demanded that the council should acknowledge Iraq's cooperation and scale down nuclear inspections.

Russia circulated a draft resolution stating that Iraq has fully cooperated with UN inspectors on nuclear issues but would still be subject to inspections if the IAEA receives more information about its clandestine programme.

France said it was too early to lift sanctions but argued that the council should take stock of Iraq's progress in nuclear weapons.

Most outspoken was China's Deputy Ambassador Shen Guofang who argued that the weapons inspection programme should be closed down as soon as possible. He accused UNSCOM inspectors of behaving like "an army of occupation" and acting in an "arrogant and insolent manner".

Defending the US stance, White House spokesman Mike McCurry stated that "there is one narrow area involving the nuclear weapons programmes that have been reviewed carefully by the IAEA ... Aside from that area, we think that the conditions that would be necessary for broad-based sanctions relief don't present themselves because Saddam Hussein has not fully complied with the requirements the international community placed on them."

The US holds that more information are needed on nuclear enrichment, design and imports to Iraq in the past and that there is much that needs to be done on chemical and biological weapons as well as on human rights and accounting for prisoners taken from Kuwait in 1990.

Iraq has accused the US and Britain of manipulating the inspection programme to maintain sanctions indefinitely.

According to reports, US officials are concerned that effectively closing the book on Iraq's nuclear file might step up international pressure to end the sanctions prematurely. Nevertheless, Washington also fears an uncompromising stance will backfire and weaken international resolve to maintain the overall inspections and the sanctions programme.

Earlier, before the Security Council decision, Baghdad warned that if sanctions are not lifted it will no longer abide by the UN sanctions and will break the embargo.

In Baghdad, General Amer Saadi, an adviser to president Saddam Hussein, said that future ties with UNSCOM would be "determined in the light of the results of the Security Council debate". US Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson dismissed such threats as Iraqi "bluster".