The United States has told UN weapons inspectors to put their possible mission to Iraq on hold until the UN Security Council finishes its deliberations on a proposed new inspection regime for the country.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell issued the request late on Monday, hours after UN officials in Vienna reported progress in talks with an Iraqi delegation on resuming arms inspections after a four-year hiatus.
Powell said chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix had done a very good job in pulling together a team of inspectors ready to go Iraq.
”But I think also he will have to wait and see whether or not the United Nations Security Council comes up with new guidance or additional resolutions that might require him to modify his plan,” the secretary of state pointed out.
He said all those involved in the Iraq inspections issue must wait and see ”how things develop over the next couple of weeks” with a proposed new UN Security Council resolution, or resolutions, that will spell out a future course of action vis-a-vis Baghdad.
The comments appeared to cast a cloud over the talks in Vienna, where, according to UN officials, discussions centered on access to sensitive sites such as the defence ministry, garrisons of the elite Republican Guard troops and the headquarters of the ruling Baath party.
The Iraqis were ”trying their best … to expedite our requirements for effective inspections,” Blix said after the first day of the two-day negotiations.
The Guardian newspaper reports that one issue that was not on the Vienna agenda, however, was Iraq’s eight presidential palaces that have always been kept closed to inspectors.
”That’s an issue we’re not discussing. That’s for the security council,” the newspaper quoted a senior source as saying.
It is thought that inspectors in Iraq would need at least a year to establish what changes, if any, had been made to the Iraq military, the newspaper said. – Sapa-AFP