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Iraq-UN Talks Ended, U.S. Military Plan Still On: Report
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Sabri greets Hans Blix (Left), Annan watches
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BAGHDAD,
May 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – An Iraqi official said
Saturday that Iraq's talks with UN chief Kofi Annan were a
"positive step", liable to lead to results acceptable to
both sides, as analysts voiced suspicion that the U.S. is still paving
the Middle East theatre for a military strike to topple Baghdad’s
regime.
The
Washington Post reported Saturday that the debate over arms
inspections in Iraq is being watched warily by the U.S. government.
Pentagon officials, who favor taking military action against Saddam
Hussein, don't believe they can be carried out in a way that
guarantees an end to Iraq's program to develop nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons.
By
contrast, some State Department officials believe support for
attempting inspections would help the United States create a coalition
of other nations if the need arises to take military action against
Baghdad.
While
BBC’s online news service described talks between Annan and Iraqi
Foreign Minister Naji Sabri as ‘chatting about their hobbies during
the latest round of discussions aimed at getting UN weapons inspectors
back into Iraq’.
"They
have really been able to talk shop," one UN official said, as if
the two men had spent the past three days in New York exchanging tips
about fly-fishing or bird-watching.
Of
course, this meeting was much more serious, and when diplomats
"talk shop", it means they are getting to the nub of things.
Although
it was the meeting between Annan and Sabri that grabbed the headlines,
the more productive discussions appeared to have taken place between
UN weapons experts and their Iraqi counterparts, according to BBC.
The
chief UN inspector, Hans Blix, who heads the UN Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission - known as UNMOVIC - led these
technical talks, alongside Mohamed El Baradei, who is the director
general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
According
to Annan, their discussions with the Iraqi delegation were the first
to take place at a technical level since UN weapons inspectors last
left Iraq in December 1998.
The
Iraqis sought clarifications from Blix, and El Baradei, about how any
future weapons inspection team might work if it was allowed to return
to Iraq.
One
of the problems with the previous UN weapons inspection team - which
was known as UNSCOM - was that the Iraqis felt it was staffed by spies
for the U.S. Government, and had deliberately tried to provoke Baghdad
by mounting needlessly aggressive inspection missions.
UN
officials say great care has been taken to make UNMOVIC a much more
palatable organization for the Iraqis to deal with.
Unlike
UNSCOM that was staffed by people selected and paid for by
governments, all of UNMOVIC's staff members are international civil
servants on the payroll of the UN.
This
care and attention to detail could, however, be overtaken by events if
the U.S. administration decides to act on its threat to intervene
militarily in Iraq.
The
Bush administration made no secret of its desire to destroy Iraq's
weapons capability, and possibly topple Saddam Hussein.
Although
U.S. military action is not imminent, Annan said the threat was
clearly preying on the minds of the Iraqi delegation.
He
said they wanted an answer to the question of whether allowing UN
weapons inspectors back in would have any bearing on the U.S.
Government's talk about what Annan called "regime change" in
Iraq.
Meanwhile,
the U.S. proposal of convening a peace conference on the Middle East
this summer, according to analysts, relates to Iraq. President Bush
urgently needs the Middle East conflict to come off the boil if the
U.S. is to stand any chance of winning the support of Egypt and the
Gulf states for plans to use military might to change the regime in
Baghdad.
However,
The talks in New York from Wednesday to Friday were "a positive
step on the road of realizing Iraq's full rights," an Iraqi
official told Agence France-Presse (AFP), requesting anonymity.
"Dialogue
with no strings attached, rather than threats, is the way to reach an
outcome acceptable to both sides," the official said.
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