- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said on Wednesday it would halt cooperation
with U.N. weapons inspectors until several key conditions were met, and
called for an immediate end to international sanctions. ``Iraq completely
suspends its cooperation with the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) within
its current setup and the International Atomic Energy Agency,'' said a
statement released after a meeting of Iraqi leaders chaired by President
Saddam Hussein. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz also sent letters
to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the head of the U.N. Security
Council informing them of the Iraqi decision. Several hundred Iraqis held
demonstrations in Baghdad protesting against U.N. weapon inspections. They
chanted anti-American slogans and called for an immediate end to the U.N.
surveillance, imposed after Iraq's 1991 Gulf War defeat. Iraq said it wanted
UNSCOM -- charged with scrapping its weapons of mass destruction -- to
be led by a new executive which would equally represent all nations which
were permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. UNSCOM's headquarters
should be moved to Geneva or Vienna from New York, in order to ensure that
the body was far from direct U.S. influence, said the statement, released
after a meeting of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council and leaders of
the ruling Baath Party. It also urged that the UNSCOM offices in New York,
Bahrain and Baghdad be ``reformed'' -- indicating that staff should be
changed. As an expression of goodwill, Iraq would allow the United Nations
to continue weapons monitoring in the country through surveillance cameras
installed at Iraq's weapons sites and factories, the statement said. But
it warned that U.N. staff involved in the surveillance should respect Iraq's
``sovereignty, security and dignity,'' and that Iraq should have the right
to expell anyone who violated these commitments. The statement said Iraq
had met its obligations toward the U.N. resolutions and it was high time
for the Security Council to lift economic sanctions imposed on Iraq as
punishment for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under terms laid down after
Iraq's Gulf War defeat, the sanctions will not be lifted until UNSCOM decides
that the country is free of all three types of weapons of mass destrukction
-- nuclear, chemical and biological. UNSCOM says Iraq has yet to come clean
on its weapons, but chief U.N. arms inspector Richard Butler said on Wednesday
a resolution of key issues had been very close. The Iraqi statement also
urged the Security Council to punish the United States and Britain for
imposing no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. British and U.S. planes
are patrolling northern and southern Iraq to protect the Iraqi population
from possible attacks by Baghdad. Earlier on Wednesday, Iraq's parliament
had voted unaminously for a freeze in the work of U.N. arms inspectors.
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