UNITED NATIONS: In the first high-level meeting between the United Nations and Iraq in more than a year, the Iraqi foreign minister discussed UN demands for weapons inspections with Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday, but there were no indications that Baghdad is ready to drop its objections to such scrutiny.

The nearly four hours of closed-door talks with Foreign Minister Naji Sabri focused on the return of weapons inspectors to the country and other “core issues” in the UN-Iraqi relationship, Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

“The UN side raised the UN’s concerns, and we raised our own concerns,” Sabri said he as left UN headquarters. Although Thursday’s meeting appeared inconclusive, it was cordial and not confrontational, in marked contrast to the last high-level encounters between UN and Iraqi officials, participants said.

And it appears to have bought the Iraqis some valuable time, with Annan agreeing to resume talks with Sabri in mid-April. That meeting will be “based on a well-defined agenda agreed in advance,” Eckhard said.

The Iraqis originally sought Thursday’s meeting in response to the threat of US military action against the country, Western diplomats and UN officials said. Annan, reflecting the stated views of most Security Council members, said Thursday that he hopes US military intervention could be averted through negotiations and a resumption of inspections.

“I would want to see a situation where we are able to resolve our differences diplomatically and that Iraq comes into compliance,” Annan told reporters before the talks began. “I wouldn’t want to see a widening conflict in the region.”

UN officials had said earlier that they wouldn’t consent to a second round of talks with Sabri unless Iraq indicated some willingness to reopen its doors to weapons inspectors, who left the country in December 1998.

In the meeting in Annan’s 38th-floor offices, the Iraqis met for the first time with the head of the UN’s recently reorganized weapons inspections unit, Hans Blix, whose team hasn’t been allowed to visit Baghdad.

Neither Sabri nor Annan would divulge the results of Thursday’s discussions, which Annan termed “frank and useful”. Annan said he wouldn’t speak publicly about the discussions until he briefs the Security Council in a closed session Friday morning. But he noted in his statement that Iraq had again asked for the lifting of UN sanctions and an end to “no-fly” zones over much of the country.

US officials here reiterated Washington’s view that Iraq must give UN inspectors “free and unfettered access” to all relevant military sites and documents but said they would defer further comment about the meeting until after Friday’s Security Council briefing.

The Security Council has pledged to keep trade sanctions intact until UN inspectors certify that Iraq has eliminated nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as any programmes to develop such weapons in the future. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times.