Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
An oil industry source also said that the move will also render moot Iraq's demand that all eighth-phase oil
contracts be extended to Jan. 15.
The eighth phase expired on Dec. 5. The ninth phase runs from Dec. 6, 2000 to June 3, 2001.
There are about 70 million barrels of crude assigned to eighth phase sales contracts that have yet to be shipped,
U.N. officials said. Iraq and the United Nations have routinely agreed to roll over contracts from one phase to the
next. But until such agreements are made, there has often been uncertainty among the oil trading community on
the fate of expiring contracts. The move is intended to eliminate such uncertainty, a U.N. diplomat said.
As of Wednesday, there were 71 oil sales contracts submitted
approved, a U.N. official said.
by Iraq to the United Nations, 61 of which had been
Among those approved, four had been submitted in the past two weeks involving 14.2 million barrels of Basrah
Light crude to be shipped to the United States and eight million barrels of Kirkuk sour crude destined for Europe,
the U.N. said. Since the oil-for-food program began in December 1996, it has been extended in l8O-day periods.
Iraq has often chafed at the six-month extensions, saying that the sanctions should be lifted entirely.
Efforts by U.N. Security Council members to extend the phases to a year have been resisted by Baghdad, which
has said such moves would make the program appear to be more than a temporary measure.
4 January 2001
By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst
* * * * *
Syria joins Iraq, Iran against Israel
WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 (UPI) - Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
For years, if not decades, many U.S. and Israeli foreign policy columnists regularly lamented that only the "lack
of vision" - or courage, or anything you want to imagine - of Syrian President Hafez Assad was preventing Syria
taking the "historic opportunity" of making peace with Israel. Last year, tough old Assad, who had held Syria in
an iron grip for a full 30 years, finally died, to be succeeded by his mild-mannered, Western-educated son Bashar,
an eye-doctor by profession and an enthusiastic exponent of the economic wonders of the Internet.
Surely, progressive, forward-looking young Bashar, so many of the Western experts and columnists said, would
abandon the repressive, paranoid old ways of his father and lead his country out into a bold new era of engagement
with the outside world.
And indeed, he has.
But not the way they expected. Bashar has launched a new era of Syrian foreign policy all right, but one that is
on a collision course for war, not peace, with Israel; for confrontation, not engagement, with the United States;
and for close military cooperation with Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq, not rejection of him.
Commercial air links are being resumed between Damascus and Baghdad for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Iraq has responded by giving Iran permission to over-fly its territory when sending air shipments of arms and
ammunition to the Iran and Syrian-backed Hezbollah (Party of God) Shiite militia in southern Lebanon.
Bashar, Middle East intelligence sources told UPI, played the key role in brokering this agreement. They also
said that Bashar is working hard to achieve a rapprochement between historic enemies Iraq and Iran. Between
1980 and 1988 they fought the bloodiest war in modem Middle East history in which half a million people, at
least three-quarters of them Iranians, died.
Bashar has even given the go-ahead for close military cooperation with Iraq. This involves, the sources said,
joint planning for a coordinated response in the event of war with Israel. Iraq has moved one of its few and precious
armored division in recent weeks to the border with Syria, not to threaten Syria, but to be able to respond
quickly in support of Damascus if hostilities erupt between Syria and the Jewish state. Late last year, Syria and
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