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No proposal to lift Iraq sanctions yet received - Security Council President

No proposal to lift Iraq sanctions yet received - Security Council President

The United Nations Security Council, already engaged "in intense dialogue" over resolutions on Iraq, has not yet received a proposal for lifting sanctions, but the issue could come up next week, the President of the 15-nation body said today.

"This dialogue is very intense and is taking place right now and it will be held over the weekend," Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser of Mexico, which holds the Council's rotating Presidency for April, told reporters.

The Council is scheduled to hold informal consultations on Tuesday, one session on weapons of mass destruction to be addressed by UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, and a second on the UN Oil-for-Food programme, under which Baghdad was allowed to use a portion of its oil revenues to buy food and other humanitarian supplies. This second meeting will hear from Benon Sevan, Executive Director of the UN Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP).

Council members might raise the sanctions issues then and "we will be able to respond then," Ambassador Zinser said.

President George W. Bush said earlier this week the United States would seek the lifting of the sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and subsequent 1991 Persian Gulf War.