Global Policy Forum

By Edith Lederer

Britain accused Syria late Monday of illegally importing and selling millions of barrels of oil from Iraq in the most serious violation of U.N. sanctions against Baghdad since 1990.

It marked the first time that Syria, which joined the U.N. Security Council this month, was directly confronted with the charge of oil smuggling in the committee monitoring sanctions. Norway's U.N. Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby, the sanctions committee chairman, said Syria was unable to respond because debate opened late Monday. He postponed further discussion until the committee next meets, but no date has been set.

"My impression is that the members of the committee are interested, and were anxious to discuss it, but there was no time now," he said. Syria has repeatedly denied that it is importing Iraqi oil through a pipeline that had been closed for nearly 18 years.

But Britain charged that Iraq is currently shipping over 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Syria through the pipeline in violation of sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, a British official said. The Iraqi oil is allowing Syria to increase its oil exports, without a corresponding increase in its own domestic oil production, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Even if Syria is engaged in a barter arrangement with Iraq, it needs approval from the sanctions committee and has not sought an exception, the British official stressed. "It's the most serious violation of sanctions since 1990 because of the volume of oil," the British official said.

Running at its full capacity, the pipeline could pump 200,000 barrels per day, generating $1 billion a year in illegal revenue to the Iraqi government, the official said. Britain and the United States have sought to stop Iraqi oil smuggling, contending that it helps finance Saddam's efforts to rebuild his military and banned weapons programs.

The economic sanctions against Iraq can't be lifted until U.N. weapons inspectors certify that the country's weapons of mass destruction have been dismantled. But the Security Council made an exception in 1996, allowing Iraq to sell oil provided the revenue went into a U.N. escrow account to buy food and other humanitarian supplies for civilians and to pay compensation to victims of the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraq views the so-called oil-for-food program as meddling in its economic independence and over the last two years has sought to wrest control of its oil revenue from the United Nations. Britain submitted newspaper accounts of the Syrian oil imports from Iraq to the sanctions committee but said the sharp increase in Syrian oil exports since late 2000 is sufficient evidence.

Jim Placke of Cambridge Energy Resources Associates, a market forecasting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in August that Iraq appeared to be illegally exporting 120,000-150,000 barrels of crude a day to Syria through the recently restored pipeline.

The Iraqi oil, sold to Syria at a discount in exchange for cash and goods, is processed into petroleum products at Syrian refineries, allowing Syria to export an equivalent amount of its own oil, officials and analysts say. Iraq is also known to illegally export oil by truck to Turkey and by tanker through the Persian Gulf.

But Iran's more aggressive enforcement of U.N. sanctions led to a nearly 50 percent decline in Iraqi oil smuggling last year, a U.S. admiral said in November, and exports have also been significantly reduced to Turkey in recent months.

A European Union diplomat, meanwhile, said Iraq had asked the organization for a high-level dialogue on the sanctions and other policy issues. Iraq launched the diplomatic initiative in Madrid because Spain currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

The Iraqi charge d'affaires in Madrid went to the Spanish Foreign Ministry on Friday and informed the director-general for the Middle East that Baghdad was interested in initiating a high-level dialogue with the EU, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The move follows several other overtures by Saddam's government in recent days. The EU diplomat called it part of Iraq's "charm offensive" ahead of an Arab summit in March in Beirut.

In contrast to the United States and Great Britain, European countries have been somewhat more sympathetic toward Iraq and several EU members including France have called for an easing of sanctions.

But the EU official stressed that the 15-nation bloc has a longstanding policy calling on Baghdad to comply with Security Council resolutions, including calls for the return of inspectors.

In recent actions, Iraq allowed international nuclear experts from the U.N. atomic energy agency to begin "limited" inspections of a nuclear research center. The inspectors arrived in Baghdad on Friday.

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