FRANCE: BAGHDAD ASKS PARIS TO HELP BRING A QUICK END TO THE GLOBAL BAN ON IRAQI OIL SALES.

Record ID: 639607

  • Title: FRANCE: BAGHDAD ASKS PARIS TO HELP BRING A QUICK END TO THE GLOBAL BAN ON IRAQI OIL SALES.
  • Date: 14th May 1998
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MAY 14, 1998) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV: EXTERIOR OF ELYSEE 0.05 2. SV/PAN: IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER TAREQ AZIZ ARRIVES/ CU SOLDIER (2 SHOTS) 0.25 3. MV/PAN: AZIZ SEATED WITH FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC 0.39 4. CU: AZIZ SPEAKING ABOUT TALKS (ARABIC) 2.14 5. CU: AZIZ SPEAKING ABOUT TALKS (ENGLISH) 2.43 6. GV/PAN: AZIZ LEAVING (2 SHOTS0 3.03 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 29th May 1998 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE
  • City:
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVAAHDBF0NTXU0XN1NDI0TQIFCGL
  • Story Text: Baghdad has asked Paris to help bring a quick end to a global ban on Iraqi oil sales.France says the embargo can end only when Iraq has destroyed its weapons of mass destruction in line with United Nations demands.

    Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz met with French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday (May 14), and said Baghdad was completely convinced it had already fulfilled U.N.

    requirements for an end to the sanctions, whose prolongation has resulted in "more suffering for the Iraqi people.

    "What Iraq wants is a legal interpretation of the United Nations resolutions (and) a legal implementation of those resolutions," he told reporters.

    The problem for Baghdad is that "the adversary is the judge" in determining whether United Nations disarmament resolutions are fulfilled, Aziz said in an apparent reference to the United States.Iraq accuses the United States of moving the goalpost every time it comes close to scoring.

    Chirac was encouraging, telling Aziz that he saw "a new spirit of cooperation" between Baghdad and the U.N., presidential spokeswoman Catherine Colonna told reporters.

    But he said that cooperation needed to be "prolonged and even expanded" before the sanctions could be lifted, Colonna said.

    "Cooperation with the United Nations will enable Iraq to arrive at the end of the tunnel," she quoted Chirac as telling the Iraqi official.

    As for Aziz's request for a legal interpretation and implementation of the resolutions, France "has always taken a legalistic reading of the (U.N.) texts," she said.

    Chirac "backs full implentation of the resolutions and nothing but the resolutions," she said.

    Aziz also gave Chirac a letter from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, answering a letter Chirac sent Saddam in early March urging Baghdad to cooperate with the United Nations, Colonna said.

    Aziz was in Paris as part of a fresh Iraqi campaign to rally suppoort for an easing of the sanctions, imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

    Aziz is due to go to Rome and Brussels to try to garner support for a lifting of sanctions.


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