Top U.N. Weapons Inspector Invited to Baghdad

In a surprise move Thursday, Iraq invited the chief U.N. weapons inspector to Baghdad for technical talks, as a possible step toward the resumption of inspections.

According to a letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iraq said chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix and his experts were welcome to discuss outstanding disarmament issues “to establish a solid basis for the next stage of monitoring and inspection activities and to move forward toward that stage.”

Sabri said the U.N. weapons experts should come to Baghdad at “the earliest agreed-upon time” but also stressed they should conduct a “comprehensive review” to assess the degree of Iraqi compliance. Blix has said he could not do this until the inspectors were on the ground and could assess what had happened since late 1998.

The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing campaign to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with the weapons experts.

Annan has been trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow inspectors to return, but three rounds of talks since March have failed to make headway.

The U.N. imposed sanctions on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. They can be lifted only when inspectors certify that Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been destroyed, along with the long-range missiles that could deliver them.

At their March meeting, Sabri gave Annan a list of 19 questions Iraq wanted answered--some technical and some political. Blix addressed the technical questions and Annan sent the political ones to the Security Council.

These focused on lifting sanctions, U.S. threats against Iraq, the “no-fly” zones in northern and southern Iraq enforced by U.S. and British aircraft, and the creation of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

The Security Council chose not to respond to Iraq’s political questions. Sabri made it clear that Iraq would never agree to inspections without “dual commitment” by the U.N.

“We do not accept that Iraq is deprived of its right to import one pistol while Israel has the biggest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in the region, threatening peace and security of the region and the world,” he said.

But Thursday’s letter made no mention of any political issues.