IRAQ and UN officials have started new talks in New York on the sale of a limited amount of Iraqi oil. The proceeds would be used to purchase food and medical supplies desperately needed by the Iraqi people, who have been suffering for years as a result of sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War.
The head of the Iraqi team at the talks, Dr Abdel Amir alAnbari, is upbeat about the possibility of reaching agreement this time. When the last round ended on February 19th, Mr Hans Correll, the UN legal counsel and chief negotiator, said the ground had been prepared for "political consideration" by both the government of Iraq and the UN of a paper laying but all the elements of a deal conforming to the strict conditions set in last year's Resolution 986.
The main stumbling block would seem to be UN rejection of Baghdad's demand that it should, as a matter of sovereign right, purchase and deliver all supplies including to the Kurdish area of northern Iraq. Forces and officials of the Iraqi government have been excluded from this region since the Gulf War ended.
A compromise formula has, reportedly been found allowing Iraq to obtain the supplies and then hand them over to international humanitarian agencies for distribution in the Kurdish areas.
If agreement is reached, Iraq would be permitted to sell $ billion worth of oil abort 700,000 barrels a day over six months, with the option to renew the arrangement.
The UN would, however, lay down conditions of sale, the route the oil would take to reach the market and operations of the escrow account which would receive the proceeds. Before sanctions Iraq imported two thirds of its basic food needs, costing $2 billion a year as well as $500 million in medical supplies.
Until the end of 1995 Baghdad refused to consider the UN offer but rapid deterioration in the situation of the Iraqi people with little to eat and crisis levels of medical supplies has forced the government to reconsider.
On March 25th the World Health Organisation said that five years of sanctions had set the highly developed pre war Iraqi health care programme back "at least 50 years".
The agency reported that most Iraqis had been on a semi starvation diet since the embargo was imposed, infant mortality had doubled and the death rate for children under five was six times higher than normal. It recommended that the international community should reconsider its embargo. The situation has recently become mere desperate because, of a shortfall in cereal, production and failure of relief agencies to secure contributions.
