December 24, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 19, 1423

WASHINGTON, Dec 23: UN weapons inspectors are stepping up efforts to get Iraqi scientists out of the country to give details on Iraq’s weapons programmes, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said weapons inspectors had started privately talking to Iraqi experts and were trying to identify the scientists who wanted to leave.

“We’re now I think in the process of interviewing people inside Iraq in private. This is something new,” ElBaradei told CNN television.

“We have now the authority to interview people in private inside Iraq. But we’re also working on the practical arrangements to take people out of Iraq.

“We have first however to identify those who are willing to cooperate with us, those who have critical information that would enable us to succeed and we need to be concerned about their safety, either providing them asylum or if they decide to go back, that their safety and their families’ is secure.”

The IAEA chief said the agency was in “intense” talks with several countries to arrange safe passage for those experts who need it.

“Once we have these requirements in place we are absolutely ready to use that authority to move our mandate forward,” he said.

The United States has been pressing for UN experts to focus more efforts on bringing scientists out of Iraq, although until now the United Nations has resisted the pressure, arguing the plan would be difficult to implement.

A US administration official reaffirmed on Monday that Washington wants to see UN inspectors take willing scientists outside of Iraq for questioning.

“We think it’s important tool that the inspectors have and an important tool for them to use,” said the official, who declined to be named.

“We will work with the inspectors to ensure that those who want to cooperate with the IAEA and UNMOVIC (the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) are free to do so free of intimidation and violence either to the indivudal or their family,” he said.

Top US officials are working with the UN inspectors to handle the logistics of getting the scientists and their close relatives and to arrange for them to be taken care of in the event that they do not wish to return to Iraq.

“We’re still working on that,” said the US official.

Washington says it believes that the scientists interviews may be the best way to find out the state of Iraq’s banned chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell late last week renewed demands about interviewing scientists, after accusing Baghdad of being in “material breach” of its international disarmament obligations.

He said inspectors should give high priority to conducting interviews with scientists and other witnesses outside Iraq.

“Iraq is obligated — it is their obligation to make such witnesses available to the inspectors,” Powell said Thursday, as he also called on inspectors to intensify their search for banned weapons in Iraq.

Under Security Council Resolution 1441, UN inspectors can take Iraqi scientists and members of their families outside the country for questioning — without possible intimidation on the part of Iraqi authorities — on their role in arms development.

Analysts said there will be pressure to include members of the scientists’ extended families because Iraqi police could crack down against even uncles and distant cousins.

According to The Los Angeles Times, US officials have identified 500 out of 18,000 scientists who have been involved in weapons projects as people of interest.—AFP