The request was contained in a 10-page reply letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the resumption of United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq.

"After being translated from the original Arabic, the letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri will be circulated as an official document of the Security Council," UN deputy spokeswoman Jiang Hua said here.

On Aug. 5, the secretary-general, had sent a letter to the Iraqi foreign minister indicating that he looked forward to receiving from the Iraqi government a formal invitation to the UN weapons inspectors.

Three rounds of talks earlier this year made little progress toward the UN goal of getting inspectors back to work verifying whether Iraq had eliminated its weapons of mass destruction, as demanded by UN Security Council resolutions.

The inspections are key to suspending UN sanctions against Iraq,imposed after Baghdad's troops invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990.

The weapons experts, who went into Iraq after the 1991 Gulf Warthat drove Iraq out of Kuwait, spent seven years inspecting and destroying Iraq's dangerous weapons before leaving in December 1998 on the eve of a US-British bombing raid.

"We repeat our offer for a round of technical talks to evaluatethe previous phase (of inspections) and discuss a method of dealing with unfulfilled issues at the time of the voluntary departure of inspectors in the end of 1998," said the letter from Baghdad.

At those talks, the letter said, the UN team could raise any issues "including the practical details of the resumption of a monitory system and laying down the appropriate grounds for advancing towards a comprehensive solution and the implementation of all requirements of the Security Council resolutions."

In New York, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, told reporters that Baghdad wanted to establish ground rules before agreeing to a return of inspectors, who left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a US-British bombing raid and have not been allowed back.

"We are at the stage of discussion, not implementation," Aldouri said.

The vacationing Annan would have no immediate comment on the letter, Jiang said.

(Xinhua New Agency August 17, 2002)