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Iraq wants oil revenues for Haj pilgrimage

UNITED NATIONS: Iraq has asked the U.N. Security Council to release $50 million from its oil revenues directly to Baghdad's central bank so 22,000 pilgrims could travel to Mecca for Haj.

Its U.N. ambassador, Saeed Hasan, said in a letter on Friday that stringent U.N. sanctions had prevented Iraqis from making the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for nine years by controlling how Baghdad spends its money.

At issue are rulings by the council's Iraq sanctions committee that a humanitarian group, such as the Red Crescent, could disburse some $2,000 to each pilgrim. But the council and U.N. legal advisers have rejected allowing the monies to go through Iraq's central bank as Baghdad wants.

Iraq, under trade sanctions since its troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990, has rejected this procedure and again said the central bank should handle the funds for the March pilgrimage.

Saeed said proposals that "impinged on Iraq's sovereignty over its resources or imposed flawed mechanisms intended to offend the patriotic or religious sentiments of Iraqis are rejected in advance and unworthy of discussion."

Diplomats said Secretary-General Kofi Annan was reviewing options for the pilgrimage but they said the council would not approve a direct transfer of funds to Iraq's central bank because this would violate the sanctions.

Saeed said Iraq would export an extra $49.4 million in oil or allocate this sum from oil already sold. It would distribute some $2,000 to each pilgrim, submit the names of those travelling to Mecca and ask Saudi Arabia to verify them.

"The embargo has deprived Iraq of the financial resources necessary to provide the requisites for the performance of this (religious) duty," he said in a letter to Dutch Ambassador A. Peter van Walsum, chairman of the sanctions committee.

Iraq is allowed to sell oil, under U.N. supervision, to buy food, medicine and other goods approved by the council to east the impact of the sanctions. But the United Nations receives the oil revenues directly and pays for the supplies.

Saeed blamed the rejection of Iraq's plan on the United States and Britain, which he said "attempted to extend the sanctions to the relationship between man and his Creator."

A Western diplomat said President Saddam Hussein's government was putting its national sovereignty above the religious needs of its people, adding that Baghdad "had no trouble identifying resources for building palaces."

The trade sanctions, according to many critics, have impoverished ordinary Iraqis but allowed the leadership to control the economy and obtain revenues for its own purposes.-Reuters