British, Dutch to Offer Resolution on U.N. Inspections, Foreign Oil Investments in Iraq

Britain and the Netherlands plan to introduce a Security Council resolution that could allow foreign oil companies to invest in Iraq if President Saddam Hussein cooperates with U.N. weapons inspectors, and if a team of experts to be assembled by Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommends it.

“We want to move full-steam ahead on humanitarian provisions to the people of Iraq,” a British diplomat at the U.N. said Tuesday. “We are not in the business of relaxing Saddam’s compliance with Security Council resolutions. This allows for investment in the Iraqi oil industry only after Iraq has demonstrated compliance in certain areas.”

Under the plan, Hussein would have to allow weapons inspectors full access for 120 days under a newly formed U.N. Commission on Inspection and Monitoring.

At the same time, Annan would appoint a panel of experts to report on Iraq’s humanitarian needs and how the nation could increase its oil production to buy food, medicine and other necessities for civilians.

The panel could recommend increasing the number of oil export outlets allowed under the oil-for-food program. The program, which will expire Monday but has been routinely extended in the past, allows Iraq to sell $5.25 billion worth of oil every six months in order to buy emergency goods for ordinary Iraqis suffering under sanctions imposed since Baghdad’s troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.

A spokesman for the secretary-general said he himself had heard nothing about the proposal. Annan is traveling overseas, and a routine report from his office on the oil-for-food program is expected to be released this week.

Both France and China could have potentially lucrative oil contracts with Iraq if sanctions are lifted. They have been backing a competing Russian resolution that would lift sanctions as demands for information about humanitarian concerns or weapons are met.

The British and Dutch resolution, which is expected to be introduced Friday, would only declare the “intention to consider” lifting sanctions if Hussein met conditions.