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Security Council Encourages UN Dialogue with Iraq
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the Security Council believes talks between the UN and Iraq should continue.
After briefing the Security Council on the initial round of talks held Wednesday with a high-level Iraqi delegation, Annan said members of the Security Council generally felt it was a good sign talks had begun.
Annan and an Iraqi delegation headed by Foreign Minister Mohammad Saeed Al-Sahaf held talks at UN headquarters in New York on Monday and Tuesday. The meeting was seen as the start of a process designed to eventually lead to an end to the stalemate between Iraq and the Security Council over weapons inspections and sanctions.
The stalemate started in 1998 when UN inspectors left Iraq, and the United States and Britain launched military strikes against the country. Since then, Iraq has made the lifting of sanctions a precondition for allowing UN inspectors to return.
The sanctions, however, cannot be lifted until the Security Council is convinced that Iraq has disposed of its weapons of mass destruction, according to relevant UN resolutions.
Annan said that disarmament is obviously one of the key issues between the UN and Iraq. He said that Iraq has indicated that it has fulfilled all the obligations and requirements imposed by the Security Council, while the Security Council holds that if that is the case, then they should let inspectors in for certification and move forward.
"One of the key issues that we have to resolve is the question of inspection or verification, or what has been done and what has not been done," said the secretary-general.
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