U.N. envoy says Iraq still refuses to cooperate
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - The U.N. special envoy in Iraq said Tuesday that Baghdad stood by its decision to suspend cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors.
''There is no change in Iraq's decision announced on August 5,'' Prakash Shah told reporters.
Shah's comments echoed similar remarks by Iraq's U.N. envoy Monday, referring to a Baghdad announcement on August 5 that it would not cooperate with U.N. weapons teams until the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) in charge of disarming Iraq had been restructured to eliminate alleged American influence.
''However, Iraq will continue the dialogue ... to carry on cooperation with the U.N. with aim of ending the sanctions regime and end the oil embargo,'' he said.
Shah, the special envoy of the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, made his comments after holding two meetings with Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz. He conveyed to him a message from Annan urging Iraq to resume cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors.
The Security Council gave the go-ahead late Monday for full-scale operations by U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, despite Baghdad's continuing refusal to cooperate.
Letters the council agreed to send to the heads of UNSCOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stressed Iraq was obliged to provide the necessary cooperation.
UNSCOM, charged with scrapping Iraq's ballistic missiles, biological and chemical weapons and the IAEA, which monitors Iraq's nuclear arms, last week suspended weapons inspections of new sites in Iraq after Baghdad's decision to halt cooperation with them.
But UNSCOM experts have continued to monitor sites already identified by inspectors looking for evidence of prohibited weapons.
The U.N. weapons inspectors are waiting for instructions from their headquarters in New York to resume full inspections of Iraqi arms sites, a U.N. official in Baghdad said Tuesday.
Iraqi U.N. envoy Nizar Hamdoon told Reuters in New York on Monday ''that nothing has changed in the Iraqi position.''
Iraq has repeatedly accused UNSCOM of being influenced by Washington to prolong the disarmament process, which must be completed before the Security Council can lift punishing sanctions imposed on Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
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