Iraq said this evening it expects next week's crucial report from UN arms inspectors on the progress of their work over the past two months to be neither positive nor negative.
Mr Hossam Mohammed Amin, the head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate (NMD) which liaises with the inspectors, said he expected the report to be "grey, not white, not black".
"I hope he will not put the magnifying glass" on differences, Mr Amin told a press conference, referring to chief arms inspector Mr Hans Blix, who is to give his first report to the UN Security Council on Monday.
"I did not say that this greyness is negative, we hope that they are objective in their report," he said. The inspectors' report could prove to be decision time for whether Washington and its allies go to war to eliminate Baghdad's alleged mass destruction weapons.
Mr Amin also said he was "surprised" by Mr Blix's declarations yestersday, two days after his visit to Iraq and in which he said Iraq was not co-operating enough with the inspections.
"Exagerating and amplifying the points of differences do not correspond with the objectivity and neutrality that he has promised us," he said.
On the controversy over UN demands to conduct interviews with scientists without Iraqi minders, Mr Amin said six Iraqi scientists have refused to be questioned in private by the disarmament inspectors.
"We did our best to push the scientists but they refused such interviews without the presence of representatives" of the NMD or without having the interviews taped, he said.
"Of course we encouraged our scientists to make interviews and some of the encouragement took place in the presence of UNMOVIC representatives," he said referring to one of the two UN agencies carrying out the inspections in Iraq.
AFP