United Nations weapons inspectors have started two days of talks with Iraqi arms experts aimed at establishing if Baghdad is serious in its offer to accept the inspectors' unconditional return to Iraq. The UN's chief weapons inspector, Mr Hans Blix, said the talks at the UN's complex in Vienna were proceeding as he had hoped.
"We finished the first day of talks successfully. The purpose of the talks is that if and when inspections come about, we will not have clashes inside. We'd rather go through these things outside in advance," he said.
The UN insists that the inspectors must have unhindered access to any building or installation in the country, including President Saddam Hussein's palaces. They also want to be allowed to take samples of suspected elements of weapons of mass destruction to laboratories outside Iraq for analysis. Baghdad has until now rejected both demands.
Mr Blix said that the inspectors, who are due to go to Iraq in two weeks, must receive assurances that they will not be harassed by Iraqi security personnel and that their safety should be guaranteed. The talks, which are taking place behind closed doors, will also attempt to establish what equipment the inspectors will be allowed to take into Iraq.
Mr Blix said he will report on the talks on Thursday to the UN Security Council, of which Ireland is currently a member.
Nearly four years ago, UN inspectors searching for evidence of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry withdrew from Iraq, complaining that Baghdad wasn't co-operating with the teams.
The inspectors concluded that Iraq had a clandestine nuclear programme aimed at creating a small nuclear arsenal. The programme was well staffed and well funded but the inspectors found no evidence that Iraq had produced a nuclear weapon. They removed all known weapons-grade nuclear materials from Iraq.
The UN is likely to send about 80 inspectors to Iraq, including experts on chemical and biological weapons.
They would establish a central office in Baghdad but Mr Blix also wants to establish bases in the north and the south of Iraq.
The inspectors say that, since 1998, they have improved techniques and surveillance equipment to make their inspections more effective. The US has indicated that, regardless of the outcome of the inspections, Saddam Hussein should be forced from office.
At a meeting in Brussels yesterday, EU foreign ministers failed to agree a common approach to Washington's demand for a new UN resolution sanctioning a military attack on Iraq. Belgium's Mr Louis Michel said he was opposed to military action aimed primarily at overthrowing the Iraqi leader.
"I am totally against an attack, I cannot support it. If the conclusions of the arms inspectors are positive and prove that there really is a danger with weapons of mass destruction, then the UN Security Council will decide, but not now," he said.
Sweden's Ms Anna Lindh struck a similar note.
"We all reject Saddam Hussein, but the question is not to remove the regime, the question is to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction and that should be our common position. I can accept that Saddam Hussein is a terrible dictator, but it is not the objective of the UN to get rid of him. The objective and the goal is to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction," she said.
