Un Confirms Iraqi Pull-Out From Arbil

All Iraqis have left Arbil. We cannot see any more tanks or vehicles or artillery. They are about five kilometres away now, one UN official in Arbil said. There was no immediate reaction from the US where President Bill Clinton had been conferring with American allies on how to respond to the Iraqi move.

The UN official's comments came hours after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to withdraw from northern Iraq following two days of fighting in support of one Kurdish rebel faction against another.

Iraq's state-run television said Saddam gave the order to his defence minister at a cabinet meeting late on Sunday. It had given no timetable for a withdrawal.

 

UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali saying he was very much concerned about the deterioration of the situation in northern Iraq, announced on Sunday that he was delaying implementation of an oil-for-food deal with Baghdad.

The plan would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion of oil over six months to buy humanitarian supplies for people suffering under sanctions imposed after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. Oil had been expected to start flowing onto world markets in September.

Crude oil prices rose in early Asia trading on Monday in reaction to Boutros-Ghali's announcement.

Iraqi troops supporting the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) captured main Kurdish city of Arbil from rival forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) on Saturday and hoisted the Iraqi flag over what used to be the Kurdish parliament.

On Monday, one UN official said rebels of KDP leader Massoud Barzani were in control of Arbil and their yellow flag was flying over administrative buildings in the city.

Fighting between the two Kurdish factions long-time rivals who have shifted alliances between Iraq and Iran flared in mid-August despite US efforts to broker a ceasefire.

Clinton has placed US forces in the region on high alert and spoke by telephone on Sunday to several world leaders, including British Prime Minister John Major and Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, about the crisis.

US officials said General John Shalikashvili, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Assistant Secretary of State John Pelletreau were in Saudi Arabia for diplomatic discussions.

I am not drawing lines in the sand, that is not the purpose of the consultations we have under way, White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters with Clinton in Little Rock, Arkansas.

There is no justification for the military action Saddam Hussein has taken. The US believes that he cannot conduct himself with impunity, that there should be consequences.

Washington said UN Security Council resolutions approved after the Gulf War provided the legal basis for responding to Iraq's offensive, though officials admitted that Saddam had the right to move troops around within that part of his own country.

Arbil was not in a zone placed off-limits to Iraqi troops by the UN after the Gulf War to protect

the Kurds. But US officials said it was within the no-fly zone and UN resolutions broadly protecting Kurds against repression applied.

A senior member of the KDP, Sami Abderrahman, said the faction's fighters received arms and ammunition from Iraq but he denied that Iraqi forces took part in the battle for Arbil.

The fighting in Arbil was all done by our peshmerga (fighters). We got military support from Iraq, which was confined to arms and ammunition, he told reporters in Salahuddin in northern Iraq.

Abderrahman also said the KDP looked to Baghdad for support after the PUK started to get backing from Iran an allegation denied by Iran.

Talabani told BBC radio that the region could split into pro-Iraq and pro-Iran camps and dropped a broad hint that his group would look to Tehran for support if Washington and its allies did not respond to Saddam's intervention.