The return of United Nations arms inspectors to Iraq is not negotiable, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's spokesman said Tuesday after Baghdad said it wanted to resume dialogue with Annan.
"The bottom line for everyone is to get the UN arms inspectors back into Iraq and to finish the monitoring work that could lead to the lifting of sanctions," spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
Earlier Tuesday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the UN should not engage in a dialogue with Iraq until President Saddam Hussein's regime allowed the weapons inspectors back.
"There is reporting this morning that the Iraqi regime has asked the UN to have a discussion," Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington. "It should be a very short discussion," he added.
"The inspectors have to go back in, under our terms, under no one else's terms, under the terms of the Security Council resolution," Powell said.
Eckhard said Annan was "always ready to discuss with a member state about its willingness to comply with Security Council resolutions."
He noted that the Iraqis had approached Annan, not the other way round.
"They came to him through (Arab League Secretary General) Amr Mussa to say they were willing to talk without preconditions," Eckhard said.
Mussa and Annan met on Monday.
(China Daily February 6, 2002)
