President Saddam Hussein has dispatched senior Iraqi officials to a number of world capitals to make Iraq's case for an end to the sanctions imposed after its troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has recently been to Arab and African countries to try to drum up support and he met last week met with Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid to urge him to intervene to end the embargoes, the Iraqi News Agency INA reported.

Sahaf also met with several world officials in Johannesburg who attended last week's inauguration ceremony of South Africa's new president Thabo Mbeki and sought their support.

INA said that deputy foreign minister Nizar Hamdoon met in Caracas on Tuesday with the Venezuelan president and delivered a message from Saddam urging him to back Baghdad against the sanctions.

Hamdoon, Iraq's formerambassador to the United Nations, has already conveyed similar letters to Jamaica and Cuba.

Another senior foreign ministry official held talks with officials in Belarus on Monday and sought their backing to end the sanctions. Iraq's Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh last week delivered a similar message from Saddam to Sri Lanka's prime minister, INA said. Saleh is currently visiting some Gulf states.

Baghdad has rejected conditional proposals by Britain and the Netherlands to suspend the U.N. sanctions if outstanding questions about Iraq's weapons programmes are answered.

Britain formally introduced its draft resolution on Tuesday despite expected vetoes from Russia and China should a vote be taken in the U.N. Security Council.

"The Anglo-Dutch draft is unacceptable and is rejected completely by Iraq," Sahaf told reporters after his meeting with Abdel-Meguid in Cairo.

The British draft, co-sponsored by the Netherlands, Argentina and Slovenia and informally backed by the United States, stipulatesa period of at least eight months for any suspension of the sanctions to take effect after a new arms commission started work in Iraq.

The U.N. weapons inspectors have not been allowed into Iraq since mid-December, when the United States and Britain launched four days of air attacks against Iraq for not cooperating with arms monitors.

If Baghdad met all requirements, the sanctions could be suspended for 120-day periods, subject to a new council vote at each interval. Russia, backed by China and France, introduced a rival draft that would lift sanctions after a new arms control body is established to monitor Iraq's banned weapons.

Iraq also seeks support among world leaders for its defiance of two Western-imposed no-fly zones in north and south of the country. Western planes patrolling these zones have met challenges from and struck at Iraqi air defences almost daily since late last year.