UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9: Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain has dampened chances of resolving the UN weapons inspection issue following a speech on Thursday in which he lambasted the United States and made no new offers.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan when asked to comment on Iraqi leaders speech, he said: “I don’t see any change in attitude” adding he “did not give an inch.”

Mr Hussein, speaking in Baghdad on the anniversary of his country’s 1980-88 war with Iran, said he sought an “equitable dialogue” with the United Nations.

He repeated demands the world body reply to 19 questions given to Annan last March during talks on the inspectors, out of Iraq for nearly four years.

Iraqi foreign Minister Naji Sabri, in the first round of talks with Annan on arms inspectors in March, posed a number of political and technical questions, including ones on the US threats to topple Saddam and the unilaterally imposed American-British no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.

The UN Security Council did not give Mr Annan any answers to them.

“I think the president’s statement, insisting on answers to the 19 questions, doesn’t show any flexibility from their previous position,” Mr Annan told reporters.

Asked if Saddam’s speech gave any cause for optimism, Annan told reporters, “Not at this stage, not unless there are unforeseen developments.”

“At this stage it seems as if they are not giving an inch but I think we are at early stages yet, he later told CNN.

Diplomats here hoped that once Iraq agrees to accept UN weapons inspectors it may force US to rethink its policy to invade Baghdad citing violations of international treaty and agreement signed after it lost the 1990-91 war in which Us and the allies liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

US President George Bush has labelled Iraq as a member of “axis of evil” and has vowed to overthrow Saddam Hussein a job left undone by his father the former President George Bush senior.

Saddam in his speech made no new offers on his dispute with the United Nations on letting arms inspectors back. A UN finding that Baghdad has eliminated dangerous weapons is key to the UN suspending the sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

“The right way is that the Security Council should reply to the questions raised by Iraq, and should honour its obligations under its own resolutions,” Saddam said.