Word: liftings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...broadcast live around the Middle East, the various heads of state loudly declared support for Palestinians fighting Israeli occupation. But Saddam's comeback was the hot topic on the sidelines. Ten years after the United Nations slapped sanctions on Iraq for invading Kuwait, the issue was not whether to lift them, but how. Saddam's envoy Izzat Ibrahim even planted a kiss on the forehead of Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the Saudi Defense Minister who hosted Operation Desert Storm in 1991. "Iraqis love Saudi Arabia," said Ibrahim...
...Saddam spoiled his own party. He rejected a condition that he respect U.N. resolutions calling for weapons inspections in Iraq and an accounting of some 600 missing Kuwaiti pows. "If sanctions aren't lifted," threatened Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, "no Kuwaiti should sleep well at night." This is the other face of Saddam, one that will keep him in his box for a while. Arab leaders so willing to lift the sanctions have no real love for Saddam. Arabs paying homage to Iraq are not rehabilitating Saddam but appeasing public opinion, grudgingly acknowledging political and economic realities...
...summit showed the limits of Saddam's comeback. What mattered was not the readiness to lift sanctions, but the continuing insistence that Saddam abide by U.N. resolutions designed to curb his military ambitions. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II were the most willing to loosen the economic noose, but they insisted Saddam accept his U.N. obligations and seemed stunned by his obstinacy. "Iraq," said influential Egyptian columnist Ibrahim Nafie, "does not want to help itself...
...thumbing his nose, Saddam unintentionally breathed life into U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's efforts to rally Arab leaders around a revamped policy of containing Saddam. The summit signaled that there may be common ground on the eventual need to lift sanctions that hurt Iraqi citizens, yet at the same time to keep watch on Saddam's military expansion. Arab allies may continue to complain about U.S. air strikes in defense of "no-fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq. But Kuwaiti and Saudi officials seem in no hurry to close the U.S. air bases in their countries. Containment...
...They'll go through the motions of endorsing the intifada, calling on Israel to lift its siege of Palestinian areas, probably also calling for international protection of Palestinian civilians. The only controversy around the Palestinian issue is the fact that only a tiny fraction of the $1 billion promised to the Palestinians by the last Arab League summit has been delivered - in large part because of concern over corruption in Arafat's administration. They'll probably find a way around this by releasing the money in monthly tranches, in order to allow for close scrutiny of how it's spent...