June 30, 2005
Russia Likely Won't Block Annan Request
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 
Filed at 9:01 p.m. ET
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Russia probably won't block U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's request to turn over potentially sensitive documents to oil-for-food investigators despite its initial concerns, diplomats said Thursday.
Moscow would probably fall in line with the 14 other members of the council and agree to Annan's request to hand over notes taken by U.N. Secretariat officials at meetings of a Security Council committee that oversaw the oil-for-food program, a Russian diplomat said.
Diplomats who were asked for the notes expressed concern at first about accuracy, sloppy translations and inclusion of personal opinions in them. There was also a debate over whether the notes belong to the Secretariat or to the Security Council.
''Once these issues were sorted out, it was actually a pretty simple issue,'' U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said.
The Independent Inquiry Committee, headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, is investigating alleged corruption in the $64 billion program, in which Iraq got food, medicine and humanitarian goods in exchange for oil.
The actions of the five permanent members of the council -- Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States -- are likely to come under particular scrutiny.
The oil-for-food program aimed to help ordinary Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, but it has become the target of several corruption investigations since the Iraqi leader was ousted.
The investigating committee collected thousands of documents from the Secretariat, but wants the entire file of notes from the closed sanctions committee meetings and informal Security Council sessions, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
He described Annan's request as a courtesy to the council. Members agreed to get back to him with any objections by Tuesday.