July 11, 2002	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1423

BAGHDAD, July 10: Iraq on Wednesday published what it said was the list of 19 questions it put to Kofi Annan last March, five days after a third round of talks with the UN chief this year failed to produce an agreement on the return of arms inspectors to the country.

Several of the questions related to the United States’ plans to “invade Iraq and forcibly change its nationalist regime,” as well as to keep UN sanctions in place so long as the regime of President Saddam Hussein remained in office, according to the text carried by the official INA news agency.

Other questions sought guarantees that UN arms inspectors would not resume “spying” if they were readmitted into the country, and assurances about a mechanism to ensure that the UN Security Council reciprocate Baghdad’s compliance with UN resolutions by fulfilling its own obligations.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, who put these and other questions dealing with disarmament and the nature of inspections to Annan in March, failed to reach agreement on the return of the inspectors, barred from Iraq since pulling out in December 1998, during talks with the UN chief in Vienna which ended last Friday.—AFP