IRAQ: The UN weapons inspectors have said they found a "change of heart" in Iraq's willingness to comply with UN disarmament demands and were leaving Baghdad cautiously optimistic.
"We're beginning to see a change of heart on the part of Iraq," Dr Mohamed ElBaradei told a press conference after he and Dr Hans Blix completed two days of key talks with Iraqi officials.
"We made good progress . . . We are leaving with a sense of cautious optimism," he said.
But Dr ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, added that "Iraqi co-operation in all areas has to be simultaneous."
"We need to see Iraq eager to comply and not failing to comply."
Dr Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, earlier said he too had "detected the beginning of a serious attitude on the part of the Iraqis on substance". His mission here was the "beginning of taking those outstanding [disarmament\] issues more seriously".
But he cautioned that while Iraq's co-operation on the process of implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1441 had been satisfactory, it remained less forthcoming on the substance.
"Access [to suspect weapons sites\] has been prompt and practical," Dr Blix said.
"Co-operation on the process [of Resolution 1441\] had been good" while Iraq's commitment to the substance of the directive had been "less good". Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei, who held three rounds of talks with senior Iraqi officials at the foreign ministry, are to leave Baghdad today and are scheduled to report their findings to the Security Council on February 14th.
In practical terms, the Blix-ElBaradei mission yielded a promise from Iraq to respond by Friday to a UN request for the use of U-2 spy planes for aerial imagery and surveillance.
"We should have a response on that issue before Friday," said Dr Blix.
Iraq has agreed in principle to the flights but has been reluctant to authorise them on grounds it could not guarantee their safety while US and British war planes operate patrols in "no-fly" zones in the north and south of the country.
Iraq says it fears one of the U-2 aircraft could be shot down by a US or British plane, with Washington blaming the Iraqi military and using the incident as an excuse to declare war. Dr Blix said Iraqi authorities had also provided the United Nations with documents on its experience with anthrax bacteria and on the status of its Al-Fatah and Al-Samoud missiles and pledged to form a commission to unearth all data pertaining to weapons programmes.
Iraq responded by saying it hoped to resolve over the next few days a deadlock with weapons inspectors over surveillance flights by U-2 spy planes over its territory.
"We hope that it could be resolved within the coming days before Dr Hans Blix makes his report . . . to the [Security\] Council" on February 14th, presidential adviser Gen Amer al-Saadi told a news conference.
The general said Iraq was also considering overflights by medium-altitude and low-altitude aircraft. - (Reuters, AFP)