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The United Nations Security Council will hold an urgent public meeting on Iraq on Wednesday at the request of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Arab League, council president Mamady Traore said Tuesday.
The meeting will start at 3:00 p.m. EST (20:00 GMT) Wednesday and is expected to extend into Thursday due to a long list of speakers, Traore, ambassador of Guinea to the UN, told reporters after council consultations on Western Sahara.
Traore confirmed that the two organizations wrote to him proposing the urgent session to allow UN member states to air their views on the situation in Iraq.
The Non-Aligned Movement had called two council public meetings on Iraq this year, both of which brought together speakers from over 50 countries without a seat on the Security Council.
Traore said experts of the council's Sanctions Committee are still working on a draft resolution concerning humanitarian assistance to the war-plagued Iraqi population.
The council has agreed to discuss the draft at the ambassadorial level at 10:00 a.m. EST (15:00 GMT) Wednesday, he said, adding that he hoped consensus could be reached then.
He noted that UN experts have met Saturday and Monday on the proposals by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to adjust the oil-for-food program so as to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people.
Annan recommended the council adopt a resolution giving him interim authority to administer the humanitarian oil-for-food program, which has been run jointly by the Iraqi government and the United Nations.
He also asked for council authority to reach arrangements on humanitarian relief with the post-war authority in Iraq.
The proposals drew strong criticisms from the Iraqi side, which accused Annan of helping the United States and Britain snatch its oil resources and declared its total rejection of such proposals.
(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2003)
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