Iraq has pressed anew for the United Nations to authorize aid of one billion euros ($915 million) to the Palestinians, via the UN supervised oil-for-food program, the state INA news agency reported Saturday, August 18.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri sent a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urging an immediate agreement to allow sanctions-slapped Iraq, under UN supervision, to purchase medical and humanitarian supplies for the Palestinian people.
"The Palestinian people, who endure the worst forms of racist colonialism, have urgent need for rapid humanitarian assistance, especially after the dangerous escalation in the (Israeli) repression," INA quoted Sabri as saying.
Sabri accused the United States and Britain of "inflicting more suffering on the Palestinian people and encouraging the Zionist entity to pursue its policy of collective punishment and assassination," by blocking Iraq's wish to transfer UN supervised oil revenues to the Palestinians.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussain had announced his intention in December 2000 to deliver, from Iraq's supervised UN oil-for-food program, one billion euros to support the Palestinian uprising or intifada. Iraq has been subjected to UN supervision of its oil sales since late 1996, as an antidote to the debilitating effects of economic sanctions slapped on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. ― (AFP, Baghdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
