UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council Thursday unanimously approved the coalition-sponsored Iraq resolution, ending 13 years of sanctions, allowing for the immediate resumption of oil sales to finance rebuilding of the country and giving the United Nations a strong role in the process.
The vote was delayed about 45 minutes while awaiting arrival of a representative from Syria, the only Arab state on the 15-member panel, who did not show up so the official vote was recorded as 14-0.
Syria's Deputy Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad said the Damascus government was meeting at the time of the council session and had requested additional time to reach a position. Syria similarly sat out a vote on a Middle East resolution March 30 of last year.
After the vote, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the council the United Nations would work with the occupying powers to rebuild Iraq.
"The mandate you have given us involves complex and difficult tasks," he said. "But we will carry it out to the best of our ability, just as we are already carrying out our vital task of humanitarian relief."
Ambassador John Negroponte of the United States, a sponsor of the resolution along with Britain and Spain, welcomed the vote.
"The lifting of sanctions marks a momentous event for the people of Iraq," he said. "It is the turning of a historical page that should brighten the future of a people and a region."
He called the vote "decisive action (by the council) to help the Iraqi people."
He said the vote was sought 11 days after the first of four versions was introduced because debate over the language would have hindered recovery work. He said the resolution provided a flexible framework "for the Coalition Provisional Authority, member states, the United Nations and others in the international community" to take part in Iraq's administration and reconstruction.
The measure established a framework "for an orderly phase-out of the oil-for-food program, thereby preserving, for a transitional period, what has become an important safety net for the people of Iraq," he said. "The resolution establishes transparency in all processes and United Nations participation in monitoring the sale of Iraqi oil resources and expenditure of oil proceeds."
Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, despite Syria's absence, said the U.N. system hopes the vote "marks a return to sustained consensus on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues we have faced."
Before the U.S.-led war on Iraq, the Security Council was split on whether to disarm then President Saddam Hussein using military force. Of the five permanent members of the body, the United States and Britain favored force; France, Russia and China did not. The United States went ahead with the war claiming previous U.N. resolutions gave it the right to use military force against Iraq.
Relations between Washington and Paris were strained over the issue and Thursday's vote, which France eventually favored, was seen as a thaw in ties.
Greenstock, and others, expressed hope Annan would appoint and deploy a strong special representative to Iraq.
The apparent front-runner for the post was a top Annan troubleshooter Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian favored by Washington, but who recently was named as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Vieira de Mello was reported on his way from his Geneva office to New York.
Greenstock said the lifting of the sanctions, imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, would help Iraqis rebuild their economy, and news programs such as Development Fund for Iraq would ensure oil revenues were used in a transparent manner to meet the humanitarian needs of Iraqis.
"An International Advisory and Monitoring Board coupled with independent auditing will help guarantee that Iraq's resources are once again used exclusively to benefit its people," he said.
He pointed out that the resolution said the role of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission - the weapons inspectors - and the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency had yet to be determined.
"The United Kingdom continues to see a role for both bodies in the eventual confirmation of disarmament and, perhaps, if the council agrees, in longer term monitoring and verification," he said.
An arms embargo remains in effect, but excludes coalition forces.
The measure, while calling for repatriation of Kuwaitis and other third party nationals following the 1990 Gulf War, also called for the return of Kuwait's archives and for objects recently looted from Iraq's cultural institutions.
Ambassador Sergei Lavrov of Russia said his nation "was satisfied with the compromise (resolution) reached," and was particularly pleased with the "orderly phase out" of the oil-for-food program, under which Moscow has substantial contracts pending.
Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere of France said the measure "will help the Iraqi people to overcome the challenges they face" and "give the United Nations the possibility to play a tangible and independent role to assist" them.
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