Blix speaks of ‘progress’ after talks with Iraqis
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BAGHDAD, 19 November 2002 — Chief UN disarmament expert Hans Blix said yesterday he believed he was “making progress” after a first round of talks with Iraqi officials aimed at resuming the hunt for Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction.

“I think we are making progress,” Blix said after emerging from around two hours of talks with Iraqi officials at the Foreign Ministry. “We have started discussions on the modalities of (the) resumption of inspections. We’re going to continue tomorrow around the same time,” he said.

Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed El-Baradei began talks with Iraqi officials earlier yesterday accompanied by aides. They met at the Foreign Ministry with President Saddam Hussein’s adviser Gen. Amer Al-Saadi, and Blix’s Iraqi counterpart Brig. Hossam Amin, who heads the National Monitoring Directorate.

Earlier as the plane carrying the UN inspectors landed, US and British jets launched a new raid against Iraqi air defenses. Baghdad rejected US charges it had violated a new UN resolution by trying to shoot down the warplanes patrolling “no-fly” zones.

Blix and El-Baradei flew into Baghdad from Cyprus with a team of about 30 experts.

“We have come here for one single reason and that is because the world wants to have assurances that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” Blix told reporters on arrival. “The situation is tense at the moment, but there is a new opportunity and we are here to provide inspection which is credible,” the 74-year-old Swede said.

Referring to UN sanctions imposed on Iraq because of its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, he added: “We hope that opportunity will be well-utilized so that we can get out of sanctions.”

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Iraq’s leader to give “prompt and unfettered access” to sites suspected of having nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Iraq’s press said yesterday Baghdad would cooperate fully with the inspectors, but it urged them to be neutral and honest.

“We want these teams to prove to the Americans that our country is free from weapons of mass destruction,” said a newspaper owned by Saddam’s son Uday. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in Brussels before a European Union ministerial meeting: “The ball is in Saddam’s court. It is up to him now whether he is disarmed peacefully or by other means. (Agencies)

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Arab News
Saudi Arabia's First English Language Daily
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