Iraq Refuses to Allow Relief Workers to Stay

Just days before U.S.-led allies plan to bar Iraqi aircraft from the south, a senior U.N. official failed Friday to persuade Iraq to allow relief workers and armed guards to remain in the country.

U.N. officials said Jan Eliasson, who had held five days of talks in Baghdad, will leave today for London to brief Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Eliasson, a Swede, is the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs.

Failure to resolve the dispute adds to the problems between Iraq and the United Nations. Those include Iraq’s failure to cooperate fully with U.N. inspectors trying to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction, and its mistreatment of Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south.

Iraq is expected to get an ultimatum early next week from the United States, Britain and France that it faces attack if it flies military aircraft in the southern marshlands.

On Friday, Russia added its support to the “no-fly zone” for Iraq. A diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Russians joined a briefing for Boutros-Ghali on preparations for the zone and plan to join in delivering the warning to Iraq’s U.N. ambassador in New York on Monday or Tuesday.

The Russian involvement is significant because the former Soviet Union had a friendship treaty with Iraq and supplied it with weapons. Arab nations, including Gulf War allies Syria and Egypt, have been leery of a renewed military confrontation with Iraq.

Iraq invited parliamentarians from the 15 member states of the Security Council to visit southern Iraq to show that the Shiites are not being mistreated, Iraq’s U.N. ambassador, Abdul Amir Anbari, told reporters Friday.

The Baghdad government has paralyzed relief operations by the United Nations and other groups in Iraq since a pact granting the aid workers visas and travel permits expired June 30. Eliasson arrived in Baghdad on Monday to try to renew the agreement.

The Iraqi government contends that it can handle relief itself and has accused U.N. guards of spying. Several guards have been attacked in recent weeks.