Iraq, saying its patience was wearing thin after nearly eight years of punitive UN sanctions, warned the United Nations Security Council yesterday that it would not wait much longer for the United Nations to lift its trade embargo.
Iraq's Vice-President, Mr Taha Yassin Ramadan, said that if the security council did not react positively to the open letter addressed to the council's chairman and its members on Friday, Baghdad was ready to fight until the sanctions were lifted.
"The age of this letter is not years or months. It has a limited time," Mr Ramadan said at the closing session of a conference of Arab politicians and dignitaries in Baghdad.
"Either we accept to die slowly or we fight in order to lift the embargo," Mr Ramadan said. He did not spell out in what way Iraq would fight for the lifting of the sanctions.
In its letter to the security council, Iraq warned the United Nations that prolonging the sanctions would have "grave consequences".
The sanctions, imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, were extended last Monday after Mr Richard Butler, head of the UN Special Commission (Unscom), told the Security Council that virtually no progress had been made in arms inspections over the past six months.
Unscom was charged with monitoring the dismantling of all Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and the sanctions cannot be lifted until it says its task has been completed.
The UN special representative in Baghdad, Mr Prakash Shah, held separate meetings yesterday with Mr Ramadan and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, Iraq's official news agency, INA, said.
Mr Ramadan underlined what he said was "the need to lift the embargo. . . . because its maintenance constitutes a great danger for Iraqis who are suffering the unjust sanctions."
The UN envoy for his part commented on Baghdad's "cooperation" with the UN and noted that several members of the security council had praised the progress it had made, INA reported.