Iraq predicts sanctions collapse

Iraqis have welcomed recent flights with joy

By Middle East correspondent Frank Gardner

Iraq says the recent arrival of international flights into Baghdad means UN sanctions against the country have begun to collapse.

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, told the BBC on Thursday that countries were defying the US by ignoring the supposed ban on flights.

These are busy days for the government in Baghdad. Almost every day now another country announces that it is sending a flight to Iraq.

After 10 years the air embargo is all but over. The Iraqi Government says the collapse of sanctions will follow.

On Thursday, Mr Aziz held a press conference to welcome a Jordanian delegation that flew in the day before with humanitarian aid.

He told them their gesture of solidarity with Iraq echoed the feelings of Arabs all over the world.

Divisions

The ban on flights, he said, had no basis in law. Mr Aziz told the BBC he believed this was the beginning of the end for sanctions against his country.

He said people were following their conscience by ignoring American pressure to keep Iraq isolated.

Tariq Aziz says countries are defying the US by ignoring flight ban

"When the Americans insist to keep, to enforce the sanctions by such outrageous actions, people simply do not hear the Americans and they act, as I said, according to their own conscience," Mr Aziz said.

There is of course a big difference between countries sending humanitarian flights to Iraq and resuming trade.

Members of the UN Security Council have been divided over whether air traffic with Iraq amounts to sanctions busting.

As long as those sanctions remain, there is certainly a clear ban on commercial transactions with Iraq.

But with so many countries now sending official missions to Baghdad, even the ban on trade may soon be in jeopardy.