U.N. Tries to Negotiate With Iraq on Arms Inspections

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday opened what promises to be a weeklong effort to resolve the latest impasse over U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq.

Annan is trying to persuade the Iraqis to rescind an Aug. 5 decision that suspended most cooperation with the inspectors. In return, Annan and the U.N. Security Council would conduct a comprehensive review of the 8-year-old economic sanctions imposed on Baghdad. Aziz was described as interested in the proposed review but noncommittal when urged by Annan to resume full cooperation with the inspectors, according to sources familiar with the closed-door session.

At a news conference after the meeting, Aziz brushed aside questions about reversing the Aug. 5 announcement. He declared that the Security Council has “a legal and moral obligation” to conduct the sanctions review without any “concessions” by Iraq.

Aziz, who is accompanied on his visit here by Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf and other Iraqi officials, is expected in the next few days to meet with delegates from several of the 15 nations represented on the Security Council, including Russia, Iraq’s chief backer on the council. He then will have a second session with Annan.

U.N. officials are reported to be hopeful that Aziz will recognize there is little backing among council members for Baghdad’s current behavior and will back off in return for a sanctions review that could be used to build a public case for at least some easing of the embargo.

Details of what would be included in the comprehensive review have not been made public, and indeed it is not clear that Annan and all members of the Security Council are in complete agreement on what it would entail. Sources indicated, however, that it would provide the inspectors, Iraqi officials and members of the council with a forum to discuss Baghdad’s behavior in the years since a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi occupiers out of neighboring Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War.

Under terms of the cease-fire that ended the 1991 conflict, the U.N. inspectors must certify that Iraq has eliminated biological, chemical and nuclear weapons activity and its long-range missiles before the Security Council can lift the embargo. The sanctions include an embargo on most oil sales, which had been the government’s chief source of income.

Iraq contends that it long ago met those conditions, but U.N. inspectors say the Iraqi government has carried out a campaign of deception and may still be harboring illegal weapons and conducting illicit arms research.