
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 6, 1991                   TAG: 9103060270
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: AMMAN, JORDAN                                LENGTH: Medium

IRAQ PROMISES RETURN OF PLUNDERED RICHES

In a flurry of concessions to Kuwait and its allied liberators, Iraq officially renounced its annexation of the war-ravaged emirate Tuesday and vowed to return hundreds of millions of dollars worth of looted property, including nearly a dozen civilian jetliners, a Central Bank vault full of gold and scores of priceless museum pieces.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz announced the measures in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

The concessions by Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, Aziz stated, were meant to satisfy last week's U.N. resolution, demanding that Iraq annul all legislation that made Kuwait its 19th province and declare its intention to pay war reparations to the devastated nation before a formal cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War would take effect.

Iraq's national treasury is all but bankrupt after a seven-month international embargo ground the nation's economy to a halt. Iraq's vow to return everything it stole from Kuwait after its Aug. 2 invasion was seen by most analysts as an attempt to fulfill the U.N. demand that Kuwait be reimbursed.

"I have the honor to inform you that the Iraqi government has decided to implement its agreement on the decision of the Security Council," Aziz declared in the text of a letter reported by the Iraqi News Agency in Baghdad.

Aziz also told Perez de Cuellar that the Command Council, chaired by President Saddam Hussein, decided to return "all properties that fell into our hands after Aug. 2."

Specifically, Aziz mentioned gold, Kuwaiti currency, passenger jets and museum property, all of which eyewitnesses saw Iraqi occupation forces methodically loot from official and private buildings throughout Kuwait City during the six months after Iraq's brutal invasion.

The property, Aziz said, would be returned in the shortest time possible, and the foreign minister requested Perez de Cuellar to establish formal procedures for delivery.

The gold presumably came from the looting of Kuwait's Central Bank vault, which Kuwaiti resistance sources had described in detail within days of the invasion. Iraqi soldiers had blown the vault with dynamite and loaded several trucks with cash and gold bars, resistance sources said.

The aircraft, most Airbus-300 passenger jets belonging to state-owned Kuwait Airways, had been spirited away from Kuwait's international airport about a month after Iraq conquered the emirate.

The planes had been flown to the new international airport in Iraq's southern city of Basra, where all were repainted and retooled to look like Iraqi Airways passenger jets. Because of the widespread unrest in Basra, the jets' status was unclear Tuesday. It also was unclear whether the Iraqis would repaint the craft before their return.

Aziz's reference to museum property clearly meant hundreds of priceless items the Iraqis removed from Kuwait's national museum, an act that outraged the international art world.

What remained unclear, even after Aziz's pledge Tuesday, was the fate of tens of thousands of other items systematically looted from Kuwaiti government ministries, from private corporations and from thousands of civilian households.

by CNB