BAGHDAD, Aug 2: Iraq, under threat of a US military strike, said on Friday it had invited Hans Blix, the chief UN arms inspector for Iraq, to Baghdad for talks on the possible resumption of weapons inspections, halted in Dec 1998.
The invitation was made in a letter Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri sent on Thursday to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Iraqi foreign ministry said in a statement.
“I have the honour of informing you of the Iraqi government’s desire to hold in Baghdad a new round of technical talks between Iraqi experts and the chief UN weapons inspector as soon as possible,” Sabri said in the letter.
The Iraqi move comes amid growing indications that the United States is seriously considering a military campaign to overthrow President Saddam Hussein, whom Washington accuses of covertly developing weapons of mass destruction and harbouring terrorists.
Blix’s proposed visit was aimed at “reviewing what has been done to disarm Iraq between May 1991 and Dec 1998, as well as study outstanding issues”, Sabri said.
Talks would aim to “find a common ground on the scientific and practical methods to remedy the situation and resolve (problems) conforming to the vision of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC),” the body which Blix heads and which has never set foot in Iraq.
UNMOVIC was set up by the UN Security Council on Dec 17, 1999, in resolution 1284 which offered to suspend the sanctions regime slapped on Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990 if Baghdad cooperated fully with the inspectors.
It replaced UNSCOM, the old verification group which, already under a cloud of spying allegations, was withdrawn from Iraq in Dec 1998 on the eve of a US and British bombing campaign.
“The Iraqi proposal contains no preconditions on what has already been done to disarm,” said Sabri, who last month accused Blix of having blocked, at Washington’s behest, a third round of Iraq-UN disarmament talks in Vienna by refusing “detailed discussion on the seven-and-a-half years of inspections.”
“We think this review will be an important step towards the legal and technical re-evaluation of issues linked to disarmament so as to establish a solid basis for the next stage,” Sabri said.
The aim would be to reach an agreement on “preparations for a resumption of cooperation between Iraq and UNMOVIC with a view to sealing a general settlement conforming to all UN Security Council resolutions”.
US ‘SCEPTICAL’: While welcoming “any movement”, a US diplomat at the United Nations expressed doubts about the sincerity of Iraq’s invitation to Blix.
“The United States is always sceptical about Iraqi claims to comply with Security Council resolutions,” Richard Grenell, the spokesman at the US mission to the United Nations, told Thursday’s edition of The Washington Post.
Britain, Washington’s closest military ally on whom US President George W. Bush would likely call in any campaign to topple Saddam, was also sceptical.
“Saddam has a long history of playing games. As his track record shows, he does not deliver,” a foreign office spokesman said.
“Iraq remains in breach of at least 23 of 27 separate obligations placed on it by the United Nations Security Council.
“The requirement of Iraq is clear and unchanged: unfettered access for UN weapons inspectors — any time, any place, anywhere,” the spokesman said.
RUSSIA HAILS OFFER: However Russia, which opposes a US strike on Iraq, hailed Baghdad’s offer as an “important step”.
“Moscow considers the Iraqi proposal as an important step in the right direction towards resolving the crisis through political and diplomatic means in the framework of UN Security Council resolutions,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Sabri’s letter to Annan was disclosed on the eve of the 12th anniversary of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, which sparked off the UN embargo.
ANNAN: The United Nations said Iraq’s letter “is at variance with the (procedures) laid down by the Security Council” in 1999.
While UN Secretary General Kofi Annan “welcomes the letter”, spokesman Fred Eckhard said, “the procedure proposed is at variance with the one laid down by the Security Council in its resolutions of 1999”.—AFP