"Mr Blix will be here, as I heard from the foreign ministry this morning, on the 8th (of February)," Aziz said, adding Blix will not meet with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

An Iraqi Foreign Ministry statement said on Thursday that Iraq has invited Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to return to Baghdad before Feb. 10 for fresh talks on cooperation in Iraq's disarmament.

The invitation was sent by Saddam's science adviser Amer al-Saadi to Blix and ElBaradei, the Foreign Ministry statement said.

Their meetings with Iraqi officials would focus on "a number of questions related to enhancing cooperation and transparency" between the two sides.

Both parties would discuss "ways to improve the mechanisms of cooperation and consultation to re-establish a better monitoring regime," the statement said.

Their discussions would also include some questions on Iraq's disarmament raised by the two chief inspectors in their reports to the Security Council on Monday.

In the crucial report on Iraqi disarmament to the UN Security Council, Blix and ElBaradei gave a better-than-expected assessment of Iraq's cooperation, but called for more efforts on the Iraqi side to resolve remaining unanswered questions.

They are scheduled to make their next update report to the UN Security Council on Feb. 14.

The United States accuses Iraq of secretly developing weapons ofmass destruction and is pouring tens of thousands of troops into the Gulf region to back up its threats to disarm Baghdad by force.

(Xinhua News Agency February 2, 2003)