VIENNA/PARIS, 1 October — The United Nations atomic energy official Muhammad El-Baradei said UN experts were "making progress" after a first day of talks in Vienna yesterday with an Iraqi delegation on resuming arms inspections, but that much remains to be done. "I think we went through a good deal of issues. We will continue tomorrow. I think we are making progress," Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters after some five hours of talks on logistics for resuming inspections in Iraq after a four-year hiatus.
These arrangements include details such as visas, office space, landing rights and providing security for the inspectors. "But I think we still have a lot of work to do," Baradei said. The talks are seen as crucial for Baghdad to avoid a war, with the United States pressing for rapid and unlimited inspections and threatening military action if Iraq fails to comply.
UN inspectors, charged with verifying that the regime of President Saddam Hussein is not harboring weapons of mass destruction, were pulled out of the country in December 1998. Hans Blix, chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) tasked with carrying out the inspections said: "We have had a very full day of discussions and we have completed the first reading of all the practical arrangements."
He said the Iraqis were "trying their best ... to expedite our requirements for effective inspections but we are not there yet." Baradei said larger issues such as visits to sensitive sites like presidential palaces in Iraq and a tougher UN resolution demanded by the United States were not being discussed.
Gen. Amir Al-Saadi, a technical adviser to Saddam Hussein, agreed the talks were businesslike, but declined to give further details. Referring to a tough new US-British draft resolution that threatens military action unless Iraq disarms and that rewrites the ground rules for inspections, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said inspectors would abide by any resolution that was passed. "If the Security Council decides to issue a new directive or resolution, of course we will follow that," he said. "In the meantime, we have these practical arrangements that we need to see eye-to-eye on with the Iraqis."
The United States hit determined opposition from Russia and France over its stance on Iraq yesterday, threatening its bid for tough new UN-imposed arms inspection rules as experts met in Vienna to discuss them. Russia and France, both with veto powers in the United Nations Security Council which is to consider a US-drafted resolution on Iraq, separately rebuked Washington.
Russia rapped Washington for sending its warplanes to strike a southern Iraq target on Sunday, while France slammed the threat of military force contained in the US draft proposal at the United Nations.
France yesterday raised the diplomatic stakes in the Iraqi crisis by warning that independent American military action could lead to a calamitous free-for-all in international affairs. The world faced a "defining moment", French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in Paris. The "fundamental" principles which underpinned the United Nations — "stability, fairness and responsibility" — would be trampled if Washington decided to go it alone.
On the other hand, de Villepin gave a clear warning that France would be prepared to support, and even take part in, military action against Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to comply with a new UN resolution on disarmament. If Baghdad failed to come into line with the will of the international community, "we should draw all the appropriate conclusions," he said, in a front-page article in the newspaper Le Monde.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his opposition to any use of force by the United States without UN approval, saying the priority was to secure the return of the inspectors. "Our main task now is to bring back international monitors to Iraq in order that all issues surrounding Iraq can be solved by political and diplomatic means," Putin said at the start of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Moscow. (The Independent)
