U.N. Orders Air Embargo on Iraq : Gulf crisis: But the shooting down of any planes is barred. Medicine and food are exceptions. Declaration contains no enforcement provisions.

By MELISSA HEALY and DON SHANNON

Sept. 26, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

UNITED NATIONS —

The U.N. Security Council, attempting to close a final loophole in international trade sanctions against Iraq, voted 14 to 1 Tuesday to order virtually all air traffic to and from Iraq halted.

The resolution, the United Nations’ eighth designed to condemn and punish Iraq for its Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, calls on all nations to deny the takeoff, overflight or landing of planes suspected of carrying goods to or from Iraq or Kuwait.

Flights carrying medicine or food--”humanitarian” goods approved by the council--are permitted, but only after they have been inspected to confirm the cargo. Passenger flights also are permitted. In addition, all nations are called upon to detain aircraft for as long as necessary to verify whether there is any contraband aboard that would violate the U.N. trade embargo imposed last month.

The shooting down of any planes that ignore the embargo is specifically excluded, however. Members of the council reminded governments taking part in the blockade to adhere to the international law known as the Chicago Convention, which forbids attacks against civilian aircraft.

Unlike the earlier embargo, which affected sea and land routes, Tuesday’s declaration of an aerial blockade contains no official enforcement provisions and thus is voluntary and largely symbolic.

But it is designed “to add another brick to the international wall being constructed around the aggressor,” British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd said. Hurd was one of 13 foreign ministers who participated in the vote, a rare move that underscored the seriousness of the continuing U.N. outrage and concern over the Iraqi invasion.

Abdul Amir al Anbari, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday night that the resolution constituted “an act of aggression, an act of war.” But he added, “We are exercising restraint, because if war were to break out, it would destroy everything in the region.”

Earlier in the day, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, in a toughly worded speech to the U.N. General Assembly, also warned that a great war could erupt in the Persian Gulf “any day, any moment” and suggested that a U.N. military operation in the region may be possible.

Shevardnadze, whose nation had been Iraq’s closest ally until the invasion, noted in his address that the United Nations “has the power to suppress acts of aggression” and hinted that it could be used unless Iraq ends what he called “its illegal occupation of Kuwait.”

Only Cuba, which has consistently backed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, voted against the air blockade, charging that the resolution supports “inhuman options (that) deny the right to receive basic food and health care” and “brings us closer to a military outbreak.”

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, speaking to the Security Council, warned that no nations must try to evade the “international quarantine” and declared: “No temptation of minor gain should lead any government to complicity with Iraq’s assault on international legality and decency.”

At the same time, Baghdad is not “free to disregard its international obligations,” including humanitarian aid, for the tens of thousands of foreigners trapped in Iraq and Kuwait, Baker said.

He added, “We cannot allow our hopes and aspirations to be trampled by a dictator’s ambitions or his threats.”

Among foreign ministers attending the session were Shevardnadze, who presided, Baker, Hurd, Roland Dumas of France and Joe Clark of Canada. The last time a significant number of foreign ministers attended a Security Council session was at the United Nations’ 40th anniversary session in 1985.

Meanwhile, Kuwait’s foreign minister, Sheik Sabah al Ahmed al Sabah, asserted that the new U.N. measure, known as Resolution 670, also makes Iraq liable, morally and financially, for the destruction inflicted by its troops on Kuwait’s economy.

“The government of Iraq is legally bound to bear all the responsibility for the destruction and pillage inflicted upon the economic and social infrastructure of Kuwait, whether public or private,” the sheik declared.

Nearly eight weeks after the first sanctions resolution was passed, the Bush Administration said Tuesday that the embargo has virtually closed off Iraqi trade. All but 15% of Iraq’s merchant fleet has been idled, and loss of oil revenues to Baghdad now stands at $100 million a day, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

“We think the sanctions are generally holding,” Baker noted in his U.N. statement. “With respect to exports, they’re holding quite well. No oil is coming out.”

Reports of overland sanctions-busting have focused on traffic from Jordan, Turkey and Iran, despite those countries’ declared adherence to the embargo.

More recently, naval forces in the Persian Gulf have watched helplessly as several commercial vessels have bypassed the naval enforcers by hugging the territorial waters of countries whose navies are not helping to enforce the sanctions.

A multinational fleet operating in the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the gulf has intercepted a total of 1,290 vessels to ask their skippers about their cargo, boarding 110 ships for closer inspection. Five ships have been detained or turned away for carrying suspect cargo to or from Iraq.

Tueday’s resolution also calls on all U.N. member nations to “detain any ships of Iraqi registry which enter their ports and which are being or have been used in violation” of the original trade embargo.

Shannon reported from the United Nations and Healy from Washington.