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Friday, April 18, 2003

He said that while "there are still sharp contrasts on points of view in the council, there will have to be "an extraordinary effort to bring the council together. All members are working now with this objective in mind." As yet, there have been no proposed draft resolutions on Iraq.

In Iraq, U.N. humanitarian efforts gradually were making progress in the face of tremendous odds.

On sanctions, Security Council diplomats said the panel was working on the topic unusually informally, perhaps because of the unusual thorniness of the issue.

Instead of going behind the usual closed-door Consultation Room in the council's chambers in U.N. headquarters, council members met "informally" in a nearby skyscraper, at the French mission.

"It is just an informal, informal discussion on everything from sanctions to weapons of mass destruction," said one council diplomat. No decision was expected from the late Thursday afternoon session. No informal consultations or even formal consultations were scheduled until Tuesday because of the Easter weekend.

Oil-for-Food on the Table

On Tuesday, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and the head of the so-called oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, were to attend informal closed-door consultations on Iraq.

The United States was seeking an early lifting of Security Council sanctions imposed on Iraq -- not the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Those nations opposed to the U.S.-led coalition's military intervention in the Arab state in the first place, notably France and Russia, feared legitimizing the attack through a council measure suspending or lifting sanctions. Washington wants to sell oil for Iraq's recovery.

The relevant council resolutions going back to 1990 following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which led to the first Gulf War, call for weapons inspectors to certify the disarmament of Iraq before suspending or lifting sanctions.

Like coalition members Britain and the United States, France and Russia, along with China, are all veto-bearing permanent members of the council.

In the council in the weeks preceding the mid-March beginning of hostilities, the coalition was joined by Spain, an elected panel member, while the French-led opposition had the additional support of China, Germany and Syria. The remainder of the 15 members claimed to be undecided on a coalition-sponsored draft resolution authorizing the attack. Seeing it faced defeat -- it would have needed nine affirmative votes and no veto -- Washington decided not to call for a vote and attacked Baghdad.

"This dialogue is very intense and is taking place right now and it will be held over the weekend," said the ambassador of Mexico, which holds the council's rotating presidency for April.

Council members might raise the sanctions issues then and "we will be able to respond then," Zinser said

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
United Nations
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