BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said on Sunday Baghdad reserved the right to use oil as an instrument to try to lift U.N. sanctions.
``We are using all the means at our disposal to defend our people and dignity. If we use economic power to serve our own legitimate interest, then this is legal and noble,'' Sabri, who was appointed earlier this month, told Reuters.
His statement follows an article last week in the influential Babel newspaper, owned by President Saddam Hussein's son Uday, arguing that Iraq should stop awarding long-term and large-volume oil contracts at least until November, when the current ``oil for food'' program expires.
Iraq halted its U.N.-administered oil exports in June for a month in protest against a U.S. and British proposal to revamp the 11-year-old trade sanctions to target the Iraqi administration more narrowly.
Sanctions were imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Publication of Babel's article has kept the oil market guessing whether Iraq's U.N.-approved exports of 2.2 million barrels a day will continue to flow smoothly.
Sabri, a former journalist who oversaw the foreign media during the Gulf War, did not rule out normal oil production under the U.N. program.
``We want a lifting of sanctions. We agreed on this memorandum of understanding (oil for food) as a temporary arrangement,'' Sabri said at his Baghdad office.
He said Iraq's policy of seeking international support to bust the sanctions that had destroyed its economy was working, with more countries trading normally with Baghdad.
``These sanctions were imposed to achieve unlawful and illegal designs by the United States and Britain against Iraq.
``It is wearing thin. Who is supporting them in the Arab world? Only two regimes that are attached and controlled by American embassies in Riyadh and Kuwait,'' he said in reference to the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The minister said Iraq had no knowledge of press reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is on a visit to Kuwait, was attempting to mend relations between Iraq and the country it invaded in 1990.
Iraq had not been contacted by Syria in this regard, he added, and laid down Iraq's own conditions for a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
``They should stop their contribution to armed aggression against Iraq, stop putting their bases at the disposal of American and British planes and stop financing this war,'' Sabri said.
Western planes police ``no-fly zones'' in northern and southern Iraq from bases in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The West set up the enclaves to protect the areas' Kurdish and Shi'ite populations from what Washington describes as a threat of attack from Iraqi forces.(Map caption)
``We pose no threat to anybody,'' Sabri said.
MAP CAPTION:
Iraq under the leadership of Saddam Hussein engaged in two major wars, against Iran in the 1980s and against an American-led alliance in 1991 after it invaded Kuwait. The government stands defiant in the face of international sanctions, which have caused severe hardship for the people but which are unlikely to be lifted until Iraq satisfies United Nations demands over weapons inspections. (BBC: Country Profiles).