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Security Council delegation says Liberia sanctions will end if conditions are met

Security Council delegation says Liberia sanctions will end if conditions are met

Amb. Jones Parry
As a Security Council mission to West Africa arrived in Liberia today, the team leader said the arms embargo and other measures now in place against the country will be lifted only when conditions are met.

"Let's be clear: the sanctions end when the Government has sufficient control over the territory, over the resources so that when sanctions are lifted, there isn't the abuse which was there in the past," Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry of the United Kingdom said at the Monrovia airport.

He called for all possible efforts to facilitate and encourage reaching the conditions so that sanctions can be terminated.

Currently, Liberia is banned from importing weapons, ammunition and related equipment, and cannot export diamonds or timber. The war-ravaged West African country has essentially been under an international arms embargo since 1992. The current sanctions, imposed in 2001 and later augmented, were a response to Liberia's support for rebels working to destabilize Sierra Leone, and other armed groups in the region.

The sanctions were discussed today during meetings in Monrovia between Council members and Chairman Gyude Bryant of the National Transitional Government.

The Council team also met with Jacques Paul Klein, the head of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).