Iraq wants United Nations to end embargo

[UPI]

BEIRUT, Lebanon (UPI) -- Iraq linked the mission of a U.N. weapons
inspection team to an overall dialogue aimed at lifting the embargo
imposed on the Arab country after its invasion of neighboring Kuwait in
1990, the Iraqi News Agency said Tuesday.
Iraqi comments came a few hours before the arrival of Rolf Ekeus,
chief of the U.N. inspectors.
Ekeus brought a message from the U.N. Security Council that Baghdad
will have to implement ``without delay and without conditions'' all U.N.
resolutions imposed following the Gulf war, the news agency said.
INA, monitored in Beirut, quoted an Iraqi official as saying that
Baghdad has not rejected the principle of placing remote-controlled
cameras in two Iraqi missile testing sites. The cameras would ensure the
equipment will not be used without U.N. authorization.
Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi side assisting the U.N.
inspection team, said Baghdad sought a postponement of the U.N. request
until discussions were completed with the United Nations to end the
embargo on Iraq.
Amin said the monitoring cameras were part of U.N. Security Council
Resolution 715 and ``in that case the concerned committee entrusted with
removing destructive weapons and the Security Council should fullfill
their obligations toward Iraq, particularly lifting the siege.''
He said Iraq pledged to refrain from any prohibited activities at the
installations of Al Rafa and Great Day and to allow U.N. inspectors to
make surprise visits to the sites.
``Such a proposal has been rejected and leaked to the western media
as if it is a political issue, and not a technical one, that aims at
achieving suspected and mean political objectives,'' Amin said in
remarks carried by INA.
He said the renewed threats to strike at Iraq had prompted the
evacuation of some installations and dismantling of equipment ``we
believe could be targeted, including Al Rafa and Great Day.''
Amin said Iraq refused over the weekend to allow U.N. inspectors to
place seals on stands for testing missile rocket motors in Al Rafa and
Great Day sites, south of Baghdad. He called it ``a terrorist way to
provoke a crisis with Iraq.''
In a seperate INA dispatch, Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Saad Al
Faisal, who has just returned from a visit to China, said Beijing
officials sympathized with Baghdad's demands that the U.N. embargo be
lifted.
Al Faisal said the Chinese officials told him that they initially
opposed the nearly three-year embargo on the Arab country and promised
help.
The Iraqi official asked China to use its power as a permanent member
of the U.N. Security Council to ``lift such an injustice which not only
harms the Iraqi people but also the credibility of the international
committee,'' INA said.