He recalled that President Sadat showed “courage, decisiveness and extraordinary political insight” when he visited Israel and addressed the Israeli parliament.

“His visit represented an extraordinary leap of faith and imagination,” Annan said. “He understood that the Arabs could not recover the land that Israel had occupied unless, in return, they offered full and genuine peace.” Annan emphasized that hope and trust must be restored among the Israelis and Palestinians and that the international community, as embodied by the diplomatic quartet - the UN, European Union, Russian Federation and United States - was seeking to do just that by helping to provide a road map towards a peaceful two-state solution within three years.

“We in the quartet fully realize that the credibility of this road map will depend on performance. But performance in turn depends on hope,” Annan said.

Agencies add: The chief UN arms inspector, Hans Blix, prepared on Thursday to fly to Baghdad to pave the way for inspections of Iraq’s alleged chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles programmes.

Blix is expected in the Iraqi capital on Monday with Mohammed El-Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), charged with supervising the abolition of Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons programme.

The two men will meet up in Europe this weekend, Blix’s office said, and travel to Baghdad via Cyprus with over 20 officials and technicians to open offices that have not been used since the previous inspectors were withdrawn four years ago.

“The technicians will install secure radio links to New York and check whether video cameras which were left behind are still working,” a UN source with experience of inspection work said.

The former special commission (UNSCOM) installed cameras in many Iraqi factories. Even if they are still functioning, outside relay transmitters which sent images to Baghdad may have deteriorated.

The advance team will upgrade equipment in the laboratory which UNSCOM had in its offices, on the top floor of the Canal Hotel, five kilometres from downtown Baghdad on the east bank of the River Tigris.

The laboratory was used to test soil and air samples taken from around the country, to see whether they contained traces of chemicals used in prohibited weapons.

Advances in technology made since Dec 1998, when UNSCOM left Iraq, mean, however, that some testing will now be able to be done in the field, the source said.

“The main advances have been in miniaturization,” he said. “We now have hand-held testers which make it possible to analyse samples without sending them back to Baghdad or to labs outside Iraq.”

There has also been huge progress in the quality of satellite imagery of the past four years.

“Commercial satellites can now spot an object 60 centimetres wide from space, whereas two metres was the limit when we began inspections in 1991,” the source said.

“The new team will also have more up-to-date computer imaging,” he said, noting that “webcams were quite rare when UNSCOM started but now they are a dime a dozen.”

While the technicians are at work, Blix and El-Baradei expect to have discussions with senior government officials to tie up what Blix called “some loose ends” in the practical arrangements for inspections.