Egypt Terms as Positive Iraq's Invitation of Chief UN Arms Inspector

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, August 04, 2002

Egypt Terms as Positive Iraq's Invitation of Chief UN Arms Inspector

Egypt on Saturday termed as positive Iraq's invitation of the chief United Nations arms inspector.

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Egypt on Saturday termed as positive Iraq's invitation of the chief United Nations arms inspector.

"The move is a positive step that opens the door to allow UN arms inspectors to return to Baghdad," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters.

On Thursday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri sent a letter to UN chief Kofi Annan, inviting the chief UN weapons inspector to Baghdad for technical talks.

The letter said Hans Blix, executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and his expertswere welcomed to discuss outstanding disarmament issues "to establish a solid basis for the next stage of monitoring and inspection activities and to move forward to that stage."

During the previous three rounds of talks since March, Annan hasbeen trying to persuade Sabri to allow UN inspectors to return to Iraq, but Annan's efforts have failed.

At the end of the last round of talks in Vienna on July 5, Annanand Sabri agreed that technical talks would continue.

The UN inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a US-British bombing campaign to punish Baghdad for not cooperating withthe arms experts.

The United Nations has imposed sanctions on Iraq since its 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait.

Under the related UN Security Council resolutions, sanctions canonly be lifted when inspectors certify that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been destroyed.

Egypt has been trying to convince Iraq to accept the UN arms inspection, while stressing Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be maintained.

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