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Blix:
“I am asked by the Security Council to do this job and I do
it”
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VIENNA,
October 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - After
two days of talks in Vienna, the United Nations and Iraq agreed on
practical ways regarding the return to Iraq of UN weapons inspectors.
Announcing
the deal, the head of the inspection team Hans Blix said Iraq accepted
all inspection rights under existing UN resolutions, reported BBC's
online news service Tuesday, October 01, 2002.
Blix
said the inspectors would have access to all sites of suspected
weapons of mass destruction, with the exception of eight presidential
palaces which are covered under a separate agreement between Iraq and
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
An
Iraqi spokesman told the news conference in Vienna that Iraq was happy
with the agreement. He said he expected inspectors to arrive in
Baghdad in about two weeks.
Officials
close to the negotiations between UN weapons inspectors and Iraq said
they were concerned that a new Security Council resolution proposed by
the United States and Britain could undermine their mission.
The
officials expressed concern about provisions in the draft which would
allow the five permanent members of the Security Council to recommend
which sites should be checked.
The
draft resolution is also said to allow the permanent members to place
their own nationals in the inspection teams - something the UN team
say could affect their credibility in the eyes of Iraq.
Members
of the previous UN inspection team - UNSCOM - are known to have
relayed information to their national governments, giving substance to
Iraqi claims of spying.
The
issue leads to the wider allegation that the U.S. wants to use
inspections to provoke an Iraqi obstruction and justify a military
intervention.
U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell already suggested the Vienna
negotiations should have been put on hold until Security Council
deliberations on a new resolution are completed.
Powell
said the UN weapons inspectors might have to wait for Security Council
guidance before any plans for going back into Iraq are finalized.
However,
Blix made it clear that he answers to the Security Council - not to
the U.S.
"I'm
asked by the Security Council to do this job, and I do it. I try
to," Blix said as he headed into a second and final day of talks
with senior Iraqis at the headquarters of the IAEA in Vienna.
The
IAEA and UNMOVIC, the UN monitoring and verification commission, are
the bodies that are aiming to carry out the inspections inside Iraq.
Earlier
Tuesday, Baghdad accused the United States of trying to derail the
resumption of U.N. arms monitoring as a prelude to an attack on Iraq,
AFP reported.
With
UN officials reporting progress in the first day of talks with Iraq in
Vienna, Al-Rafidain, a weekly run by President Saddam
Hussein’s elder son Uday, said it expected the inspectors to fly
into Baghdad on October 16.
“There
is no need for a new resolution since the Security Council already
issued Resolution 1284 (in December 1999) that created UNMOVIC,” the
U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, the official
told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The
administration of U.S. President George W. Bush turned up the heat on
the inspectors “as soon as a positive step was taken in the
direction of implementing their mandate,” said Abderrazzak
al-Dulaimi, dean of the information faculty at Baghdad University.
“Iraq
realizes that the Bush administration will try to obstruct the
inspectors’ mission ... but it (Iraq) will handle the issue in such
a way as to thwart Washington's hostile plans,” he told AFP.
“We
are moving forward with our discussions under our mandate and will of
course take into account any directions from the Security Council,”
said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).
“We
are moving forward with our business. We have to proceed as if we will
return,” she said.
The
Iraqis were “trying their best ... to expedite our requirements for
effective inspections,” Blix said after the first of two days of
talks in Vienna.
Al-Rafidain,
declaring that Iraq had “completed preparations to receive the
inspectors,” quoted a senior Iraqi arms expert as saying the Vienna
talks were proceeding “in a very positive way at the moment.”
Blix
“told the Iraqi side he was determined to close the outstanding
files (on prohibited weapons) as quickly as possible ... as a prelude
to asking the Security Council to fulfill its own obligations under
Resolution 687, chiefly the lifting of the embargo” in force against
Iraq for 12 years, it said.
But
the Bush administration will try to foil the talks as part of the
“psychological war” it has been waging against Iraq to set the
stage for an attack on the country, Al-Rafidain said.
Will
Blix “be able to resist pressures, or will he, like his
predecessors, become a tool in the hands of the United States, which
wants to block inspections so as to perpetuate the UN embargo on
Iraq?” the weekly wondered.
If
the chief arms inspector means what he says, then six months should be
enough to finish the work started by his predecessors, it added
.
