Syria to send plane to Iraq, joining challenge of sanctions

The flight is expected to receive clearance from the United Nations, but it comes about two weeks after France and Russia challenged the 10-year old sanctions by flying planes to Baghdad without U.N. authorization. The United States condemned the Russian and French flights as a violation of sanctions. But Moscow and Paris said the embargo required them to only notify the U.N. sanctions committee, not wait 24 hours for its approval. The subsequent humanitarian flights by Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Algeria were approved by the New York-based committee. The Syrian flight is particularly significant in view of the former hostility between the two neighbors ruled by rival factions of the socialist Baath party. Syria sided with non-Arab Iran against Iraq in their 1980-88 war and fought with the U.S.-led coalition force that drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.
Relations began to thaw in recent years when Syria, in a bid to revive its economy, sought contracts under a U.N. program that allows Baghdad to sell its oil to buy essential supplies and spare parts.
Last week Syria called for the lifting of the sweeping U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq to punish it for invading Kuwait in August 1990. Syrian Health Minister Iyad Shati will lead the delegation of doctors and nurses on the Syrian plane, which will carry medical supplies and food, the Syrian news agency reported. Iraq's state-controlled newspapers are celebrating the increased flights as an indication that the sanctions' regime is crumbling, but the head of the committee, Dutch ambassador to the United Nations Peter van Walsum, says Baghdad would be making a "tragic mistake" if it thought that sanctions would disappear without allowing weapons inspections to resume.
The embargo against Iraq can only be lifted after Iraq proves that it has destroyed all its weapons of mass destruction and the capability to manufacture them. Baghdad says it has complied, but refuses to cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors. However, Von Walsum said Thursday that the French challenge has made untenable the practice of seeking committee approval for each flight to Baghdad.
An Egyptian group has announced plans to fly a plane of humanitarian aid to Baghdad on Wednesday, notifying the sanctions committee but not waiting for its approval.

(AP)