UNITED NATIONS, May 16: In the first concrete political opening by Washington to Iraq in seven years, the UN Security Council offered on Thursday to effectively declare Iraq free of nuclear arms.However, a statement adopted by consensus among the 15-member Council stipulated that Iraq must provide answers to all outstanding questions on nuclear disarmament before the Council would discuss closing the file - in July at the earliest.Thursday's statement, in response to a positive report to the Council last month from the International Atomic Energy Agency, does not affect the sanctions regime in force against Iraq since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.The crippling oil embargo can be lifted only after Iraq fully complies with UN requirements that all Iraqi nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles be dismantled.And nobody is predicting that will happen any time soon, despite insistent Iraqi demands that the sanctions be lifted immediately.US Ambassador Bill Richardson stressedon Thursday that "there is some progress in the nuclear field. We've acknowledged that, but we are not closing the nuclear file."But Western diplomats said despite Richardson's tough words, the Council statement was significant because it signalled a shift in the hardline US policy towards Iraq. It comes after the Council last week lifted a symbolic travel ban against Baghdad.And a western diplomat said that if Iraq continues to cooperate, the next move "somewhere down the road" would be the withdrawal of US forces in the Gulf.US President Bill Clinton set the tone for a new approach to Iraq at an April 30 news conference, at which he said he was encouraged by improved Iraqi cooperation with UN weapons inspectors since a UN-Iraq accord in February.The February 23 agreement, negotiated by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, defused a five-month crisis over the weapons inspections and averted US military strikes."This is the first time in seven years that nice wordshave been said about Iraq," one Western diplomat commented after the adoption of Thursday's statement.The compromise statement, hammered out in Washington and Moscow in arduous negotiations over almost three weeks, had something for everyone.UN weapons experts expressed satisfaction because the text urged Iraq to provide access as well as "full disclosure" about its weapons programmes.French and Russian diplomats were satisfied, pointing out that the statement was "a step in the right direction" - along the road to lifting the sanctions.And the Americans still have a way of postponing the closure of the nuclear file, depending on the conclusions of an IAEA report requested "by the end of July."Iraq, meanwhile, said the promise to close the nuclear file was insufficient even before the Security Council issued its statement.The US-Russian negotiations on the nuclear file have delayed Council action for weeks on other Iraq issues, particularly approval of spare parts to ensure the implementationof an enhanced oil-for-food agreement.Although the United States insists that the issues are not linked, UN officials now expect the Council to be able to move forward on the oil-for-food programme, which is a humanitarian exemption to the sanctions regime.
