Iraq Still Defies Weapons Ban, U.N. Says : Sanctions: Baghdad’s envoy will be challenged with accusations at a Security Council meeting on Wednesday.

The United Nations published a litany of accusations against Iraq on Monday as Tarik Aziz, Baghdad’s deputy prime minister, arrived in New York to confront the Security Council over his country’s failure to comply with all the conditions of the Persian Gulf War truce.

The accusations came in a report from Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. His report informed the Security Council that his inspectors still believe Iraq is trying to elude the United Nations’ permanent ban on Iraq making or possessing weapons of mass destruction.

The report made it clear that Aziz will have a difficult time persuading the Security Council at an extraordinary open meeting Wednesday that Iraq has complied with the United Nations as much as possible, and, therefore, deserves some lifting of the sanctions against it.

Diego Arria, the Venezuelan ambassador who is the council president this month, predicted a “very provocative, concrete and effective” debate. Besides following their practice of reading set speeches one after another, council ambassadors are expected to fire questions at Aziz and to challenge his replies.

Many diplomats are puzzled over Iraq’s motivation in calling for the meeting. They suspect that the session will only confirm once again that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein does not see his own position in the world realistically. Diplomats expect council members to castigate Aziz and Hussein’s government sternly at the meeting and threaten further punitive action, if Iraq persists in its defiance.

But there is a good deal of uncertainty over the council’s likely course. While American officials have talked about a U.N. seizure of Iraqi financial assets abroad, the British government has talked about bombing Iraqi factories that could be used to make the prohibited weapons.

Arria, however, would not speculate. He said that council members are waiting for Aziz to make his case before they decide what to do.

Asked if the council might agree to lift some of the sanctions against Iraq, Arria said that “the best way to lift the sanctions is for Iraq to fulfill the resolutions.” He said the resolutions provide that full compliance will mean the end of sanctions.

This prompted journalists to remind Arria that both President Bush and British Prime Minister John Major have insisted they will never allow the removal of sanctions as long as Hussein is in power in Baghdad. “I haven’t seen that in any U.N. resolution,” Arria replied.

The council session will mark the first occasion since the war ended a little more than a year ago that Iraq has had a well-publicized, major forum to court world public opinion.

Judging by official documents that Iraq has filed with the United Nations, Aziz will insist that Iraq has complied with a substantial number of the demands of the resolutions and will make the case that the United Nations has trod on the sovereignty of Iraq through unreasonable inspections and has hurt the economy and health of its people through sanctions.

A specific issue brought on the present confrontation: In February, Iraq refused a demand by U.N. inspectors that the Iraqis destroy machinery and other equipment used in the manufacture and transformation of Scud missiles. Iraqis argued that the equipment should not be destroyed because, they contend, it could be converted to the manufacture of non-military products. They also said it could produce short-range missiles, as permitted under the U.N. resolutions.

But U.N. officials said that Iraq has no right under the resolutions to refuse a U.N. request to destroy equipment.