A senior Iraqi official said on Friday that Iraq is open to discuss with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issues including the arms inspections, but stressed that Iraq hopes that Annan can answer the questions Iraq left at the last meeting.
"We are going to listen to what the (UN) secretary general has to say about the unanswered questions we have left from the last meeting," said Amer al-Saadi, scientific adviser of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in a televised interview.
"These are wide-ranging questions which cover (Iraq's) relationship with the UN Security Council and disarmament," Saadi added.
"We are very open to hear what the (inspection) plans are and how UNMOVIC ( the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) is different from UNSCOM (the UN Special Commission)," Saadi said.
"We have neither accepted nor rejected (arms inspections)," he argued.
Saadi, former chairman of Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission, strongly denied that Iraq has been producing weapons of mass destruction and the means of carrying them.
Such claims against Iraq are "absolute fabrication," he said.
Saadi is expected to be a member of the Iraqi delegation headed by Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Ahmed who will open the second round of talks with Annan on May 1-3, during which Annan will press Baghdad to accept the resumption of arms inspections.
During the first round of talks in March, Iraq presented Annan some 20 questions which included how it could be sure that UNMOVIC would not be used by the United States to spy or to draw up target lists for bombing, and whether US threats of overthrowing the Iraqi regime constituted a violation of the UN Charter and the International Law.
Iraq has said that even if the arms inspectors are allowed back, this will not exclude the possibility of US military attacks, as toppling the Saddam regime has been a US foreign policy aim.
UN arms inspectors withdrew from Iraq on the eve of the US- British air war against Baghdad in December 1998, and have since been barred from re-entering.
(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2002)
