Baghdad accused the United States and Britain on Friday, November 25 of blocking 760 contracts worth $921 million for the import of oil-related equipment to Iraq.
"The American and British representatives on the UN sanctions committee have been deliberately blocking 760 oil contracts worth $921 million concluded with several Arab and foreign firms," said Iraqi oil ministry official Rafid Mohammad Al-Dabouni, quoted by the state news agency INA.
Dabouni, who heads the ministry's studies and planning department, accused the US and British delegates of using flimsy pretexts to obstruct the deals, such as the possibility that some of the equipment involved might be of "dual (military and civilian) use."
The contracts, concluded during past phases of Iraq's "oil-for-food" arrangement with the UN, were for the purchase of equipment such as power generators, ecological systems and drilling, communication, firefighting and water treatment equipment, Dabouni said. The official said Iraq had exported 246 million barrels of oil since the current, 10th phase of the oil-for-food program began on July 3 up to November 5.
The program, whose current phase expires at the end of November, allows Iraq to sell oil under UN supervision to meet the humanitarian needs of its people, who have been hard hit by the sanctions imposed on the country since Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq says the program does not meet its 22-million population's most basic needs and should not be a substitute for lifting the UN embargo. It regularly accuses US and British representatives on the sanctions committee of blocking contracts for imports into Iraq. — (AFP, Baghdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
