UNITED NATIONS, Jan 7: A new row loomed on Tuesday at the United Nations after the non-aligned countries asked the security council to hear the first progress report by UN arms inspectors in Iraq in public.

Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, are to update the council on the first 60 days of inspections in Iraq by Jan 27.

ElBaradei told ABC television on Tuesday that they would present “a status report, but not a complete report or a final report”.

The inspectors needed “a few months” before they could say whether Iraq had dismantled its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and delivery systems, as demanded by the council after it invaded Kuwait in 1990, he said.

In a letter to this month’s council president, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere of France, South Africa’s ambassador to the UN, Dumisani Kumalo, said council discussions on Iraq had great significance for international peace.

While Kumalo did not mention the incident, he pointedly said that a public meeting with Blix and ElBaradei “will afford the rest of the United Nations membership the benefit of receiving a first-hand account” of the inspectors’ work.

A council diplomat said Russia, for one, welcomed the suggestion, but the United States was “completely against” it.

Kumalo is chairman of the non-aligned nations’ coordinating bureau at the United Nations and in that capacity, he persuaded the council to hold a two-day public debate on Iraq in October, five weeks after Bush’s speech to the General Assembly.

Kumalo set the tone for the debate by urging the council not to prejudge the work of the inspectors and to do everything in its power to avoid war.

French diplomats said council members would discuss Kumalo’s latest request behind closed doors after they meet Blix and ElBaradei for the first time this year on Thursday.—AFP