ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS - Feb. 20 - UK Position On Iraq Sanctions.

UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook writes in the Daily Telegraph: "Saddam alone is to blame for his people's suffering". He says the Iraqi regime has failed to import any medicines in the second half of 2000 despite having more than $11 bn available to spend under UN-supervised accounts, which allow Baghdad to sell oil in exchange for food and medicine. He adds: "With the Americans, we are looking at ways of making our opposition to Saddam still more effective. We need to refocus international opinion on the continuing threat he poses". (The US and UK governments agreed to review the UN sanctions two weeks ago when Cook met in Washington with Powell, who has spoken of trying to "re-energize" the sanctions. The review is designed primarily to improve perceptions of allied policy towards Iraq. A senior UK diplomat on Feb. 22 met with US officials in Washington and explored the idea of switching to "smart sanctions" focused more tightly on arms control, and removing controls on civilian goods. The UN list of approved goods was already extended in Dec. 2000. Other steps might include an easing of rules to allow private Iraqis to trade more easily across the border with Jordan). Foreign Office Minister Brian Wilson said on Feb. 20: "There are two strands to British government policy. The first is to minimise the humanitarian impact on the Iraqi people, and the second is to maximise the inability of Saddam Hussein to wage war on his own people, and the region and the wider world".