Security Council adjusts reviewable list of goods under Iraq oil-for-food programme

The Security Council today approved changes to a list of goods that are subject to review and approval under the United Nations humanitarian aid programme for Iraq, as well as new procedures for implementing that catalogue.

By a vote of 13-0, with the Russian Federation and Syria abstaining, the Council adopted a resolution making adjustments to the so-called Goods Review List, which is central to a system now being used to expedite the delivery of humanitarian goods to Iraq under the UN's "oil-for-food" programme.

Under that system, States can more quickly process contracts on all goods that are not directly subject to sanctions in place since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and are not referenced on the List. Instead of being reviewed by a Council committee set up to monitor the sanctions against Baghdad, these contracts are processed directly through the UN Office of the Iraq Programme, which oversees the humanitarian operation.

Today's resolution, which goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and contains annexes naming the goods requiring approval, calls for the Council to conduct a thorough review of the List and the procedures for its implementation 90 days after its start and prior to the end of the current 180-day phase of the oil-for-food programme.

The Council also decided to conduct regular, thorough reviews and requested the Committee overseeing the sanctions against Iraq to review the List and the implementation procedures as part of its regular agenda and recommend necessary additions to, and/or deletions from, that list and its procedures.

The resolution appealed to all countries to continue to cooperate in the timely submission of technically complete applications and the expeditious issuing of export licences. It also called on States "to take all other appropriate measures within their competence in order to ensure that urgently needed humanitarian supplies reach the Iraqi population as rapidly as possible."