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Sunday February 22 2:32 PM EST
Annan Clinches Deal With Iraq -Iraqi Source
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday ended a meeting with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister
Tareq Aziz that clinched an agreement on Iraq's dispute with the United Nations over arms inspections, an Iraqi source said.
The source, who asked not to be named, said the agreement would be signed at the Foreign Ministry on Monday morning. As
he spoke, employees at the ministry were preparing a large room for the signing ceremony.
Annan met Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Sunday morning. A diplomat briefed on the talks earlier said that only a few
details remained to be sorted out after Annan's meeting with Saddam.
"All the major issues have been resolved," he said. "A deal was reached with the president. They are just here to clean up the
details," he said of Annan's evening talks with Aziz.
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Sunday February 22 1:27 PM EST
Diplomat: All Major Iraq Issues Resolved
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's talks in Baghdad have settled all the major issues in Iraq's
dispute with the United Nations over weapons inspections, a diplomat said on Sunday.
"All the major issues have been resolved," said the diplomat familiar with the talks. "A deal was reached with the president
(Saddam Hussein). They are here to clean up the details," he said of Annan's evening talks with Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister
Tareq Aziz.
Annan, within reach of a peace deal during Sunday's three-hour meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, began what
could be a final round of talks to avert U.S. and British air strikes.
"He feels he is on the verge of a breakthrough," Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said after the talks with Saddam.
At about 8.10 p.m. (1710 GMT), Annan began a possible final meeting with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz to try to
clinch a deal to be signed by both sides.
Asked if an agreement would be reached, Annan said as he arrived for the Sunday evening talks: "That's what I am going to
find out. We are very close but we will know more after this meeting."
Eckhard earlier told reporters: "Substantial progress was made today. We feel a deal is within reach."
The initial U.S. reaction was cool.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the United States would pursue its own interests in Iraq if it was unhappy with any
deal reached by the U.N. chief.
"It is possible that he will come with something we don't like in which case we will pursue our national interest," she said on the
ABC television program "This Week."
Albright said Washington would accept nothing short of unconditional access for U.N. weapons inspectors.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said the real issue was whether the U.N. Security Council was "going to insist upon full
compliance with its own resolutions."
Cohen said he would sign orders later on Sunday to call up "several hundreds" more military reservists.
He acknowledged that Saddam's prestige among Arabs could be bolstered by any U.S. strike that left him in power.
"Could he go up in stature? (It's) possible," Cohen said.
Eckhard would not identify the main issue which U.N. officials said had remained unresolved before Annan's meeting with
Saddam and refused to say if it had now been agreed.
But sources close to the talks said the stumbling block was Iraq's insistence on a time limit to any U.N. inspections of eight
so-called presidential sites for prohibited weapons.
Asked if the United States would accept the proposed deal, Eckhard said: "The Secretary-General is authorized to enter into
an agreement with any member state...
"He expects that what emerges from these talks he will be able to sell to the Security Council," Eckhard added.
Iraqi officials have made few comments about Annan's mission, but a parliamentarian said he was optimistic.
"I think the chance to reach a peaceful solution is more than any other time," said Saad Qasim Hammoudi, chairman of the
Arab and international committee of the National Assembly.
Details of any deal, if agreed with Saddam, would not be made public by the United Nations until Annan had presented it to the
Security Council, a U.N. official said.
The U.N. source said Annan would leave Baghdad on Monday afternoon for Paris and reach New York on Tuesday morning
to brief the Security Council on the outcome of his mission.
Iraq has previously said it supports a Russian proposal under which U.N. weapons teams could inspect the presidential sites
over a 60-day period, provided they are accompanied by diplomats representing Security Council members.
The United States and Britain have threatened to use force to compel Iraq to allow unfettered inspections of the sites by the
U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), charged with dismantling Baghdad's prohibited weapons without time limits.
Annan has had very little room for maneuver in his talks with Iraqi leaders, knowing that any deal must enshrine the principles of
full Iraqi compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions and no dilution of UNSCOM's role.
The United States has made clear it will not accept anything short of that. White House national security adviser Samuel Berger
said on Saturday the U.S. military was continuing to get ready for action.
"U.S. military preparations are proceeding without regard to these talks," he said of Annan's mission.
Iraqi newspapers said the United States was focused on war even while Annan was seeking a peaceful way out.
"Although the United States has agreed to the visit by the U.N. Secretary-General to Baghdad, it is beating the drum of war,"
said al-Thawra, organ of the ruling Baath Party.
Iraq's most influential newspaper Babel, owned by Saddam's son Uday, contrasted what it called Annan's optimism and Iraq's
"serious efforts" to make his mission a success with Washington's language.
"The American administration gives itself the right to judge the results of (Annan's) talks," Babel said.
But British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook held out an olive branch, saying U.N. sanctions against Iraq could be dismantled
soon if Saddam implemented a satisfactory accord.
"If he really is willing this time to cooperate, that could be done in the fairly near future," Cook told the BBC.
Meanwhile Arab anger appeared to be growing in lockstep with U.S. preparations for an attack.
"Aggression against Iraq is aggression against the Arab nation," read a banner waving over a protest in Lebanon on Friday at a
site with potent symbolism -- the empty ground on the Beirut seafront where the U.S. embassy stood until a suicide bomber
slammed into it in 1983.
Jordanian army troops on Sunday sealed off the southern city of Maan, imposing a curfew after two days of violent pro-Iraqi
demonstrations.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Zaid bin Sultan al-Nahayan said Iraq did not pose a threat to its neighbors and
rejected as "bad and loathsome" any U.S. military strike against Baghdad.
In Moscow, the leader of Russia's Communist party told protesters that the United States was behaving like "a drunken sheriff
acting as judge, jury and executioner" in threatening to bomb Iraq.
Gennady Zyuganov, leading a march against Kremlin military cuts on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Red
Army, said that Russia itself could fall victim to the sort of pressure being put on Saddam.
"A scenario is being played out which will be applied to Russia next," Zyuganov told a crowd outside the headquarters of the
Soviet-era KGB secret police on Lubyanka Square.
Sceptical Kuwaitis said they doubted that any 11th-hour deal to end the Iraq crisis would hold good because their former
occupier was not to be trusted.
"An agreement might help the world relax, but it would not help Kuwait relax," Kuwaiti environmentalist and human rights
campaigner Fatima al-Abdali said by telephone.
"We will not trust him. If there is a settlement now it will merely condemn future generations of our people to confusion and
insecurity."
Once big financial backers of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran, Kuwaitis had their faith in
their northern neighbor shattered in 1990 when his troops occupied their country in a dispute over oil and financial aid.
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