IRAQ SANCTIONS MONITOR Number 164
Friday, December 1, 2000
LATEST NEWS++++++
FRESH FROM ITS INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE.......
VHS copies of the film 'Big Ben to Baghdad', the epic account of last year's
journey in a 37-year-old Routemaster bus from London to the capital of
sanctions-engulfed Iraq. The 65-minute-film costs �9.99 from the Mariam
Appeal, 13a Borough High Street, London
+++++++++++++++++LATEST
Iraq halts oil exports through Turkey
ANKARA, Dec 1 (AFP) - Iraq halted late Thursday oil shipments through the
Turkish port of Ceyhan, a spokesman of the Turkish state oil and gas company
Botas said Friday.
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Saddam launches oil threat
>From DAILY EXPRESS, December 1st, 2000
In a brazen attempt to force the West to end its sanctions, Saddam Hussein
has threatened to halt oil exports this morning unless Western buyers break
their own trading laws.
Iraq produces 2.3million barrels a day under the United Nations-supervised
oil-for-aid programme. This accounts for about one-fifth of the world's
needs so an export embargo would send the price of oil soaring, triggering
a new cycle of inflation and recession, some fear.
Yesterday oil prices were again on the way up in spite of the mild weather
in Europe and America that is easing pressure on stocks. Benchmark Brent
crude rose 37 cents to $33.05 a barrel, approaching the autumn highs.
Western buyers of Iraqi oil must pay for it by crediting a special escrow
account supervised by the UN. But in an unexpected change of policy, Iraq
said it would not ship a drop until buyers paid an illegal surcharge of 50
cents a barrel into a Jordanian bank account. Such payments are outlawed in
countries which support sanctions.
US energy secretary Bill Richardson said last night he thought other
oil-exporting countries could plug the gap. And he pledged to release more
oil from the strategic reserve if necessary.
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First commercial flight since 1990 arrives in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Dec 1 (AFP) - A Royal Jordanian plane arrived in Baghdad overnight
Thursday from Amman, the first commercial flight to Iraq since 1990, an
aviation source said.
"The plane, an Airbus A310, landed at Saddam Hussein international airport
at around 2230 GMT after a flight of an hour and a half," the source told
AFP.
Passengers were met at the airport by leading Iraqi officials, the source
added.
The Airbus 310 plane left Amman's Queen Alia international airport around
11 pm local time (2100 GMT) with 29 passengers on board, including
journalists. It was due to leave Baghdad for the return flight at dawn on
Friday, after a brief stop in the Iraqi capital.
The plane was also carrying medicines offered by Jordan "to the Iraqi
brother people" which shows that the flight "which is not scheduled and is
not carrying out a commercial transaction, has a humanitarian role,"
Jordan's deputy prime minister and transport minister, Saleh Rcheidat said
Thursday.
"This kind of flight is authorised by the UN sanctions committee which was
informed of all the details via the (Jordanian) foreign ministry which took
the necessary measures" for such cases, said Rcheidat, who had earlier said
in Thursday's Al Dustur newspaper: "From our point of view, this flight is
not incompatible with UN resolutions but is part of flights authorized."
According to official Jordanian sources, the UN sanctions committee did "not
raise an objection" to the flight. The flight had been delayed for five
hours for reasons that the airline did not explain.
The airline delivered tickets and accepted reservations for this first
commercial flight from Amman to Baghdad, but said "it does not however mean
a renewal of regular flights between Amman and Baghdad but rather charter
flights of a humanitarian nature."
Official Jordanian sources however said that this flight could represent "an
important step" towards resuming regular flights between Amman and Baghdad,
wanted by Iraq.
The French foreign ministry said Thursday that Paris had no reason to think
that Jordan would stray from UN rules about flights to Baghdad, but
continued to consider it difficult to consider a regular air link with Iraq.
Late Thursday, Rcheidat welcomed the French statement.
Since September 27, seven Jordanian planes carrying official delegations and
humanitarian aid have landed in Baghdad, challenging the air embargo imposed
on Baghdad since 1990.
On November 1, Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb travelled by plane to
Baghdad on the first such visit by a high-ranking Arab official in a decade.
Until recent months, the air embargo against Iraq was closely observed but
has recently started to fall apart with an increasing number of flights to
Baghdad since mid-August.
The United States and Britain share a different interpretation of the
aviation aspect of the embargo to the other permanent members of the UN
security council -- France, Russia and China.
Washington and London maintain it applies to all flights, while the others
consider that there is no UN resolution banning flights to Iraq when they do
not include any commercial or financial activity and that a simple
notification to the sanctions committee suffices.
The US and Britain say all flights to Iraq must have express approval of the
committee.
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Iraq Face Off Over Oil; Traders Ignore Threat Of Cutoff; Prices Fall
>From WASHINGTON POST, December 1st, 2000
Iraq and the United Nations faced off yesterday in a confrontation over U.N.
sanctions, with Iraq threatening an immediate halt of oil exports supplying
about 3 percent of the world's needs if its demands were not met.
An interruption in Iraqi shipments could send crude oil prices surging at
least temporarily, analysts said, because heating oil and gasoline
inventories are abnormally low at the onset of winter.
But traders seemed to dismiss the threat yesterday, counting on the ability
of Saudi Arabia, Europe and the United States to make available enough oil
to make up for any reduction in supply by Iraq. Prices of crude oil
contracts for delivery in January fell 81 cents yesterday on the New York
Mercantile Exchange to $33.82 a barrel, a three-week low.
"I think Saddam Hussein is only making noise. He's trying to be heard," said
Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst with Fahnestock & Co. in New York.
The brinkmanship between the Iraqi president and the United Nations centered
on the price that Iraq is permitted to charge on its more than 2.2 million
barrels per day of oil exports, under U.N. controls imposed after the 1991
Persian Gulf War.
Under the U.N.'s terms, Iraq is allowed to sell oil provided the revenue
goes into a U.N.-controlled escrow account and is used to provide aid to
Iraqi civilians and pay for gulf war reparations.
Iraq is trying to bypass these restrictions, asking buyers to pay a
50-cents-a-barrel surcharge directly to Iraq. But the U.N. blocked that
move, refusing to approve a price on Iraqi exports shipped in December.
U.N. officials said yesterday that Iraqi oil could be loaded aboard tankers
today but the cargo costs would not be fixed until a December price has been
approved.
Several tankers pulled away empty from Middle East terminals yesterday
because of the standoff, according to news reports. There was no indication
whether loadings would continue in the face of the price uncertainty.
U.N. and Iraqi negotiators were in contact yesterday evening, but there was
no immediate word on the outcome. "What the U.N. will do to resolve this, I
don't know," said Adam Sieminski, an analyst with Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown.
"It's hard to see the U.N. caving in to payments to an [Iraqi] bank account
not under U.N. control," he said.
Sieminski said financial markets have been expecting pressure tactics from
Iraq as it tries once again to reduce or remove U.N. economic sanctions,
particularly those that bar exploration and development of what experts
believe are major new Iraqi oil fields.
"The next big thing Iraq wants is permission to do new oil-field
development," Sieminski said, putting the potential new production from Iraq
at more than 1 million barrels a day. "Iraq has the greatest capacity to add
to oil supplies. Nobody can match them," Gheit said.
Some U.S. officials tracking the dispute noted that the strained worldwide
oil inventories give Iraq leverage. "They're in a position to play hardball
if they want to," one official said. But a halt in oil shipments that lasted
long enough to do real economic damage would hurt allies, such as France,
that Iraq needs in its bid to ease U.N. sanctions, the official added.
Iraq is scheduled to send a high-level delegation to meet with U.N.leaders
about the sanctions in January. U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said
in a statement that a drop in Iraqi production would be met by increased oil
production from Saudi Arabia and drawdowns from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum
Reserve and other stockpiles in Europe and the Persian Gulf.
Sieminski said analysts disagree about the size of Saudi Arabia's remaining
spare oil production capacity. He believes the Saudis could cover only about
two-thirds of a full interruption in Iraqi exports.
The market's uncertainty about the future of Iraqi oil shipments is one
reason oil prices have remained above $30 a barrel this fall, despite a
series of production increases by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, he added.
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Iraq Won't Agree to U.N. Team
MOSCOW (AP) _ Iraq's deputy prime minister on Thursday dimmed hopes that a
two-year standoff over weapons inspections might be close to an end, saying
his government would refuse to accept a new U.N. monitoring team.
When Tariq Aziz was asked whether Baghdad would receive a delegation led by
chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, he answered with an emphatic ``no.'' Blix
is executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission, created last year to replace a disbanded panel charged with
overseeing the dismantling of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and
biological and chemical weapons programs after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Aziz's comment came two days after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
announced a tentative agreement with Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations
to open talks early next year on ending the stalemate over weapons
inspections.
However, Aziz said that Baghdad was still studying Annan's proposal, and
said his government would have to decide on when it would be ``convenient''
to take part in such talks.
Aziz met in Moscow on Wednesday with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
The two canceled a scheduled news conference, and Russian news agencies
quoted unnamed diplomats as saying the talks had been ``difficult.'' On
Thursday, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the two sides had differed
over disarmament issues, but it offered no details. Aziz left for home after
making only brief comments to press at the airport.
Russia has championed Iraq's case to lift the sanctions before the United
Nations, and it has increased the pressure by announcing it was negotiating
with Iraq to resume commercial flights to Baghdad. The Russian government,
in turn, has been under pressure from Russian oil companies eager to resume
work in Iraq.
But Moscow has also pressed Iraq to do its part. In a November visit to
Baghdad, Ivanov urged Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to allow U.N. weapons
inspectors to return to Iraq.
The United Nations has reiterated that it will lift sanctions imposed on
Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait only after inspectors verify the
weapons programs have been eliminated.
Iraq ended its grudging cooperation with the first inspection panel in 1998,
and the body was dismantled last year under the shadow of allegations that
the United States had received intelligence information from its inspectors.
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Jordan denies flights to Baghdad violate UN resolutions
By Agence France-Presse Amman--Nov. 30--Jordan denied it would be violating
U.N. sanctions on Iraq by launching Thursday what it calls its first
humanitarian-commercial flight to Baghdad since 1990. Jordanian officials
argued that Royal Jordanian "charter" flights starting later Thursday would
meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people by offering them a
commercial flight to conduct vital business.
"From our point of view, this flight is not incompatible with U.N.
resolutions but is part of flights authorized" by the international body,
Transportation Minister Saleh Rsheidat was quoted as saying in the Al Dustur
newspaper Thursday.
Meanwhile, Transportation Ministry secretary general Alaa Batayneh told
reporters: "We informed the U.N. sanctions committee about this flight,
which is classified as humanitarian but has a commercial character.
"Jordan has not violated U.N. resolutions and has followed all judicial
procedures" needed in organizing this flight, Batayneh said.
"It is not about resuming regular flights between Amman and Baghdad, but
about flights aimed at meeting humanitarian and commercial needs," he said
without giving further details.
A Royal Jordanian Airbus 310 was to take off Thursday from Amman around 6
p.m. local time (1600 GMT) and land in Baghdad one hour later, according to
the company, which issued tickets and took reservations.
It will make the return flight at 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), it said.
A spokesman for the French foreign ministry said in Paris Wednesday,
however, that this flight appeared incompatible with the U.N. resolutions.
"To conform with U.N. Security Council resolutions, a flight must not
involve any financial transaction, must not transport any commercial freight
and must be notified in the proper timeframe to the U.N. sanctions
committee," he said.
Jordanian officials said Thursday the flight is an "important step" toward
the resumption of regular flights between the two countries.
Iraq has been under economic sanctions, including a ban on regular flights,
since it invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
Since Sept. 27, seven Jordanian planes carrying official delegations and
humanitarian aid have landed in Baghdad.
On Nov. 1, Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb traveled by plane to
Baghdad on the first such visit by a high-ranking Arab official in a decade.
_______________________________________________________
MISCELLANY+++++++
In January there will be a Royal Jordanian flight from Chicago and New York
to Amman --- with a continuing segment from Amman to Baghdad!!! Jim Jennings
of Conscience International has helped this to happen, and has organized a
delegation to be on these flights to visit Iraq. This is a chance to fly to
Baghdad -- to save two days overland travel -- and to show solidarity with
the long-suffering Iraqi people on the 10th anniversary of the Gulf war,
which began Jan. 16th, 1991.
This is the information we have so far:
TRAVEL DATES: January 13-23, 2001
COST: Approximately $1250 (estimated) round trip to Baghdad from New York or
Chicago.
This cost does not include domestic airfares from your home city, but does
include all ground transfers, hotels and meals. Visa processing costs (if
any) are also not included. Final fare structure for the Amman-Baghdad
portion is estimated and has not yet been determined by Royal Jordanian
Airlines. Price is subsidized and subject to revision and/or surcharges as
local conditions require. Optional travel extensions for Iraq or Jordan may
be arranged.
APPLICATION:
Make application through one of the coordinators listed below. They
willetermine group membership and instruct you on how to submit passport
data for visas.
West Coast Coordinators:
Gerri Haynes 425-881-2874 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or Bert Sacks 206-548-9566 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
East Coast Coordinators:
George Carpaccio 781-641-9846 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or Jennifer Horan 617-547-0708 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PURCHASE TICKETS:
Order your ticket directly from this Royal Jordanian accredited agency:
JETT Travel
2151 W. Irving Park Rd.
Chicago, IL 60618
Tel. 773-539-4500
FAX 773-539-0165
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Itinerary*
Baghdad and Environs
January Departure
DAY DATE ACTIVITY HOTEL
13 JAN (Sat) Lv. New York
14 JAN (Sun) Ar. Amman Amman Airport
15 JAN (Mon) Amman-Baghdad flight al-Fanar or similar
16 JAN (Tue) Protocol visits; al-Amariyah/Aqar Quf "
17 JAN (Wed) Hospital visits; Kadhimain Mosque "
18 JAN (Thurs) School visits; al-Mustansiriya "
19 JAN (Fri) Babylon visit "
20 JAN (Sat) Solidarity meetings "
21 JAN (Sun) Visit churches; free time "
22 JAN (Mon) Baghdad-Amman flight; continue to NY
*Tentative. Deviations from planned itinerary for specific humanitarian
activities may be an option for those who have previously visited Iraq,
depending on local circumstances.
___________________________
William J. (Bill) Thomson, Ph.D.
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
tel: +44 (0)20 7403 5200
fax: +44 (0)20 7403 3823
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web: www.mariamappeal.com
