The United Nations Security Council has agreed o­n a draft resolution o­n humanitarian aid to Iraq which may be passed as early as today, said German Ambassador to the UN Gunter Plueger.

According to a Bernama report, Plueger said the draft resolution allows UN secretary-general Kofi Anan to introduce necessary amendments to the Oil-for-Food programme in order to resume it as soon as possible in Iraq.

The programme was suspended for the past week ago since the war began in Iraq o­n March 20.

The German ambassador urged to resume the aid programme as soon as possible to obviate a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq.

He said when the secretary-general decides that the staff of UN humanitarian organisations can return to Iraq without risking their lives, the Iraqis will start receiving food, medicines and other necessities.

He added that some 60 percent of Iraqis depended o­n the aid programme prior to the outbreak of the war.

Technical consultations

Technical consultations o­n the draft resolution held at the level of experts have been difficult. The majority in the Security Council did not approve the proposals made by the US and British delegations, who demanded revision of the programme.

The final resolution will be devoted to all aspects of humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, including responsibilities and liabilities of states that occupied Iraq to meet the needs of the civilians, as envisaged by international humanitarian law.

The oil-for-food programme will be amended o­nly in the part that relates to the already approved contracts for deliveries worth US$2.5 billion that are already under way.

In the US, several non-governmental humanitarian organisations in have urged the Bush administration to bring the matter of humanitarian aid to Iraq under UN control.

A letter to President George W Bush yesterday by 12 NGOs said that turning over the functions coordinating humanitarian assistance to Iraq to the UN would meet the long-term interests of all sides.

Oil and Israel

In another development, a UAE-based think tank claimed that the war in Iraq was motived by US' need to serve Israel's long-term interest in the region as well Washington's appetite to secure its future oil supply.

In a study entitled 'Oil in the American Foreign Policy: Oil Calculations in the War o­n Iraq' the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up (ZCCF) said the American interest in oil in the region was not by coincidence.

"American interest in oil does not come from vacuum or derived from coincidence. It is the essential pivot of the American strategic plans and military moves in the region," said the think tank in a Bernama report which quoted the emirate's English-language newspaper Al Khaleej Times.

According to the study, the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington had spurred the US administration to reveal its intention which aimed to dominate the whole globe.

"To achieve this goal, the US administration has exaggerated the energy crisis o­n account of escalation in the prices of energy which include oil, to dispensing with dependence o­n foreign sources, so as to fulfil its energy requirement which currently is in the region, of 60 per cent of its total needs," it said.