Iraq’s Foreign Minister Naji Sabri has said he hopes to make progress on lifting crippling UN trade sanctions at its July 4-5 talks with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the return of arms inspectors to Iraq.
"We hope this round will achieve a step forward towards a complete lifting of the immoral and criminal embargo," he told reporters shortly before leaving for the talks in Vienna.
Annan and Sabri are due to discuss the return to Iraq of UN arms inspectors who left on the eve of U.S.-British air strikes in December 1998. The strikes were intended to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with the inspection regime.
Iraq has barred the inspectors from returning to check on whether it has any programmes involving weapons of mass destruction.
The UN sanctions on Iraq, imposed for Baghdad's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, cannot be lifted until the weapons inspectors give a positive report.
Annan warned last month that the talks with Iraq could not go on for ever and said he hoped the next round would be decisive. Two previous rounds took place in New York.
Iraq wants the United Nations to suspend the sanctions before it will allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return.
Sabri said he hoped also to discuss the no-fly zones over north and south Iraq imposed by the United States and Britain soon after the 1991 Gulf War. "Iraq's security, sovereignty and territorial integrity are being violated by two permanent Security Council members," he said.
US and British warplanes patrol the no-fly zones and frequently bomb Iraqi air defence units which challenge them.
Sabri accused Washington of trying to foil the talks. "The United States, particularly the current evil administration, doesn't want the world body to behave on the basis of its charter and international law, rather it wants the law of the jungle to replace international law," he said.
Iraq also wants the United Nations to answer a set of questions, the most important of which is about Washington's threat to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
US President George W. Bush has openly declared his desire to remove Saddam, by military force if necessary, but has given few details of his plans.
A Washington Post report earlier this month said Bush had signed an order earlier this year directing the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations to oust Saddam.