- VIENNA (Reuters) - Iraqi
arms experts and U.N. weapons inspectors struck a deal on Tuesday about
resuming work in Baghdad, with an advance team of inspectors expected to
arrive in Iraq in around two weeks.
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- Top U.N. officials said the deal was struck as the Iraqi
delegation, under pressure from the threat of a U.S.-led military attack,
made a show of good faith by handing over long overdue information about
their nuclear facilities.
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- "The Iraqi representatives declared that Iraq accepts
all rights of inspection provided for in all the relevant Security Council
resolutions," chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told reporters
after the meeting.
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- The deal emerged after two days of talks at the United
Nations in Vienna aimed at returning inspectors to Baghdad for the first
time since 1998 -- an effort to prevent a threatened military strike by
the United States and Britain, who accuse Iraq of amassing weapons of mass
destruction.
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- Blix said there was a "big difference" in Iraq's
willingness to cooperate compared to 1998.
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- But he said the deal did not change existing special
rules on access to Iraq's presidential palaces, which Washington wants
to abolish in a toughly worded new draft resolution on Iraq that threatens
the use of force if they fail to cooperate.
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- "On the question of access, it was clarified that
all sites are subject to immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access.
However, the memorandum of understanding of 1998 establishes special procedures
for access to eight presidential sites," he said.
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- Asked why he expected inspectors to get full access to
suspected arms sites after past difficulties, Blix said the Iraqis had
assured him they would cooperate fully, though this would be put to the
test when inspectors returned.
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- "I think that...has to be tested when we go back
to Iraq. We need to make sure that we are making full use of our rights,"
he said, adding they still planned to return in mid-October.
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- The Iraqi delegation leader, President Saddam Hussein's
technical adviser Amir al-Saadi, said he was "happy" with the
agreement and that the talks were businesslike and focused.
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- He also said Baghdad would ensure that sensitive locations
like the defense and interior ministries -- not covered under the agreement
on the presidential palaces -- were open to inspectors and that they got
speedy access to the sites.
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- "We will take the measures that will cancel the
need for a waiting period and getting approval," he said.
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- A SHOW OF GOOD FAITH
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- As promised, the Iraqi delegation handed over four CDs
which they said contained long-overdue information on the status of so-called
dual-use nuclear equipment that could be used to build nuclear weapons
as well as for civilian purposes.
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- Iraq had not provided this information, due every six
months, since December 1998, when U.N. inspectors left Baghdad on the eve
of a punitive U.S.-British air assault.
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- Blix said the data had not yet been analyzed, but that
it would help them choose initial inspection sites.
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- One of the major sticking points in the Vienna talks
had been the issue of reconnaissance flights over the no-fly zones, where
the United States and Britain have carried out bombing raids in recent
days and which Iraq views as a war zone.
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- While the Iraqis said they would take all possible measures
to ensure the safety of inspectors, they made no promises.
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- "Iraq could not provide full guarantees about safety
in the no-fly zones," said Blix.
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- FIRST TEST FOR IRAQ
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- The negotiations finished amid increasingly tough language
from the United States and Britain, who accuse Saddam of stockpiling weapons
of mass destruction.
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- The Vienna talks were the first test of Iraq's cooperation
since Baghdad agreed on September 16 to the unconditional return of the
inspectors under threat of a U.S. military strike.
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- Blix, a Swede, is executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission, charged with locating and destroying
chemical, biological and ballistic weapons in Iraq. A team from the U.N.'s
International Atomic Energy Agency deals with nuclear weapons.
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- In Washington on Monday, Secretary of State Colin Powell
said the U.S. position was that the U.N. inspectors were not going anywhere
until the Security Council had passed a new resolution on disarming Iraq.
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- "I think Dr. Blix has done a good job of bringing
this team together, but he is fully aware of the possibility -- and I think
high likelihood -- that there will be a new resolution ...that will structure
his work and his actions," Powell said.
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- Blix said the Security Council could "take any decision
that it wishes to direct us one way or the other. We are also aware of
a new resolution on the table. But our planning remains based upon the
resolutions that we have now." (additional reporting by Ellie Tzortzi)
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