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A potential humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn Iraq provided an opportunity for the United Nations Security Council to heal its wound caused by the long bitter row over whether it should back war on Iraq.
After a week of arduous negotiations, the council on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution revamping the oil-for-food program. The measure was co-sponsored by all the 15 council members, a collective move rarely taken by the body.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and many council members hailed the vote, which came a week after the United States and Britain abandoned their efforts to win UN approval of war against Iraq and went it alone.
"It (the vote) augurs well for future tasks ahead of us," Annan told reporters here. "We have many challenging questions and I hope we will be able to approach these tasks with the same spirit."
Analysts here, however, predicted that the council could see the wound bleeding again when it comes to the sensitive issue of arrangements in the post-war Iraq. The US-led coalition launched the war on Iraq 10 days ago in a bid to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
In fact, a row over what role the United Nations could play in the post-war Iraq was already brewing at the council and among major capitals around the world.
Friday's resolution makes the United Nations a key player in supplying humanitarian relief to the Iraqi people, but did not mention any UN role beyond that. It resolved the humanitarian challenge arising from the war, but stopped short of touching such sensitive issues as political, economic and security arrangements in future Iraq.
France, Russia and Germany, staunch opponents to the war against Iraq, have already made it clear that the United Nations should play a leading role in administering the post-war Iraq.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told a German television Friday that the post-war period must be organized "under the aegis of the United Nations" and Germany would be ready to offer assistance toward reconstruction in Iraq "in such case."
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin earlier also said categorically that the United Nations should have a central role in peace-building and economic reconstruction in Iraq.
But Washington, which has its own agenda, is unlikely to allow a UN-led interim administration to govern Iraq before a new Iraqi government is elected, a model that had been implemented in East Timor during its transition to full independence.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell shed some light on the agenda last Wednesday during a hearing at the House of Representatives. He said that Washington would not agree to the United Nations overseeing a transitional authority for Iraq.
(People's Daily March 30, 2003)
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