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TITLE: Iraq Accuses UN of Not Reporting US-British Violations Over Border Zone |
AUTHOR: |
PUB/ORG: Associated Press |
DATE: December 30, 2000 |
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Iraq is questioning the credibility of a U.N. force monitoring the border with Kuwait, saying it does not report flights by American and British warplanes through the border zone as violations to U.N. resolutions, Iraqi television reported Tuesday night. The U.N. Observation and Monitoring force, known as UNIKOM, watches over a no-man's land at the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border, where its role is to monitor all land, sky and sea traffic and report any violations of either nation's territory immediately to the U.N. Security Council. "Most of the warplanes cross the area observed by the UNIKOM posts to strike Iraq and return through the same points,'' Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that was aired on Iraqi television. "By violating our territories, the warplanes commit sheer violations to U.N. resolutions, obliging the UNIKOM forces to monitor and report these violations immediately ... to the U.N. and the Security Council,'' al-Sahhaf said in his letter. American and British warplanes began patrolling the skies over southern Iraq in 1992, a year after leading the Gulf War coalition that ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait. They maintain the patrols, which take off from Saudi Arabia and carriers in the Gulf, are necessary to protect Iraq's Shiite Muslim minority in the area from the Baghdad government. The patrols are not mandated by the United Nations and Iraq considers them violations of its sovereignty and international law. It has been challenging the flights for two years - locking on to the planes with its radar - and routinely drawing fire. A similar zone covers northern Iraq. Al-Sahhaf's letter, according to the report, questioned UNIKOM's credibility "in reporting incidents and the potential dangers of these incidents, which threaten Iraq's safety and security.'' The U.N. force, it said, gives "excuses'' for not reporting such incidents: "that they cannot identify the nationality of warplanes violating the area or that the warplanes are flying too high to be spotted by its observers.'' The report said al-Sahhaf dismissed that reasoning, noting "the American and British aggressors themselves announce that their warplanes have carried out daily patrols in Iraq. Is flying in the no-man's land considered to be an accepted act?'' the letter asked. "If flying at high altitudes is not considered to be a violation, then we Iraqis can do that, too. What would the UNIKOM observers then say if Iraqi planes flew over the same area?'' the letter asked of the secretary-general. END |