French plane arrives in Baghdad, defying U.N. request for delay

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A French charter flight carrying athletes, doctors and artists landed in Baghdad on Friday, drawing a sharp protest from the United States that France was breaking the U.N. embargo against Iraq.

The chartered flight carrying some 60 passengers from Paris arrived at Saddam International Airport, having ignored a request from the U.N. sanctions committee in New York to wait for clearance.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called the flight a ''blatant violation'' of the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

''We fail to understand why the French government, which has discussed this at the United Nations for some time, could not wait 12 hours to gain sanctions committee approval of the flight,'' Boucher said in a statement.

France insisted the flight did not violate sanctions, but its refusal to wait for U.N. authorization was the latest effort by Iraq's council supporters - France, Russia and China - to chip away at sanctions.

The Netherlands' U.N. Ambassador Peter van Walsum, who chairs the sanctions committee, said he expects the Security Council to discuss the matter. A meeting was expected next week.

''It is the only instance I can remember of a flight being notified to the committee but then going against the procedures of the committee to wait for 24 hours,'' Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said, calling France's move ''a pity.''

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau said the flight ''was essentially to send doctors and surgeons to Iraq'' and should not be confused with regular civilian flights, which sanctions prohibited.

''This is absolutely not a violation of the embargo,'' Rivasseau told reporters Friday.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham disagreed, telling the Security Council during a discussion on the flight, ''This is a very regrettable occurrance from our point of view and we would hope it doesn't happen again, but I don't have any confidence in that.''

Most of the French athletes on board the flight were rollerskaters from Paris. A dozen put on a lively display of their skills, wearing rollerskates and in-line skates, in front of the Boeing 737 plane.

An Iraqi Olympic Committee official, Hussein Saeed, welcomed the French group, saying they had taken ''a big initiative in breaking the embargo'' imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

France informed the U.N. sanctions committee on Iraq on Thursday night that the humanitarian flight would be taking off early Friday, but refused a request to delay the flight for an additional 12 hours so the issue could be studied.

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-David Levitte said in a letter circulated to Security Council members Friday that his government acted entirely within the sanctions committee's regulations, stressing that only notification - not U.N. authorization - was needed.

Britain and the United States said they hadn't objected to the French flight, but had asked for a delay to find out details of the passengers and its humanitarian purpose.

Russia sent a similar flight to Iraq last Sunday and received committee approval - although its passengers included oil executives seeking deals in Baghdad.

Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, Gennadi Gatilov informed the Security Council on Friday that it planned another flight Saturday and had already notified the committee, Levitte said.

The increased flights, with their questionable passenger lists and last-minute notifications, are an indication of the growing challenge to sanctions, which critics maintain hurt the Iraqi people.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Thursday there could be no letup on sanctions.

''It is our responsibility to hold the line and to make the sanction system work,'' Albright said. She did not mention the planned French flight.

The French visitors belong to an anti-sanctions group called the French Office for the Development of Industry and Culture. They plan to spend three to four days in Iraq.

The artists intend to perform at the Babylon International Festival, a cultural event that began Friday night. The doctors plan to visit Baghdad hospitals, and the athletes were expected to meet and practice with their Iraqi counterparts.

In the flap over flights, France maintains that U.N. sanctions do not bar passenger or humanitarian flights to Iraq - only cargo flights.

The dispute overshadowed a closed-door briefing Friday by the chief U.N. weapons for Iraq, Hans Blix on progress resuming weapons inspections.

Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, told reporters that council members expressed overwhelming support for his efforts to get inspectors back to Iraq. But he acknowledged that they may not be allowed into Iraq any time soon.