Talks between Iraq and the United Nations should put as much importance on lifting sanctions and ending no-fly zones as on sending back weapons inspectors, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister said.
"Singling out the question of inspectors is wrong", Mr Tareq Aziz told reporters on last night.
"There are many items: the sanctions, the no-fly zones and the continuous aggression and violation of international law by the United States and United Kingdom", Mr Aziz said.
The US and Britain are enforcing no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, set up soon after the 1991 Gulf War to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by Baghdad forces.
Sanctions were imposed on Iraq in August 1990 as punishment for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq has banned UN arms experts, searching for weapons of mass destruction, from returning since they left on the eve of a US and British bombing campaign in December 1998.
Mr Aziz told Germany's Welt am Sonntagnewspaper today that the United Nations was not interested in weapons inspection but rather in overthrowing Saddam.
"The American president has made clear that the case of Iraq is not about the fight against terrorism and not about arms control", he said. "In disregard for our sovereignty, he wants to eliminate the regime of President Saddam Hussein and create an armed opposition to fan a civil war."
The Los Angeles Timesreported yesterday that the US administration has told the Defense Department to prepare, on a contingency basis, plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries including Iraq.