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Germany wins key U.N. role
UNITED NATIONS -- Germany is to be chairman of the U.N. Security Council's Iraqi sanctions panel despite opposition from the United States. Washington was against the deal because it feared anti-war Germany might challenge U.S. policy on Iraq. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won re-election this year after pledging that German troops would not take part in a Gulf War II. But key security council countries, including permanent members France and Russia, backed the German appointment, Reuters reported. The appointments come into effect in January when Germany, Chile, Spain, Angola and Pakistan join the 15-member council, replacing Norway, Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius and Singapore. Norway currently heads the Iraq committee, which takes decisions Iraq's oil prices and supplies Baghdad imports. Usually the high-profile post is given to a Western European nation and Germany, which chaired the committee in 1995-96, was considered the most able to do the job again. Chile, Washington's original choice for the Iraq panel, will take over the Afghanistan sanctions committee that compiles lists of people and groups suspected of association with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and remnants of the country's former Taliban rulers. Spain, with strong U.S. backing, was given the chairmanship of the Security Council's counter terrorism committee, a high-profile post which becomes vacant when Britain's U.N. ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, retires in mid-2003. This panel, set up after the September 11 attacks against the United States, monitors reports from all 191 U.N. members on what they have done to stop terrorism. The Security Council has five permanent members – the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China -- and 10 member-nations who are elected by regional groups for two-year terms, five each year.
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