Global Policy Forum

By Hassan Hafidh

Baghdad - The head of the first team of United Nations nuclear inspectors to visit Iraq since 1998 said on Monday Iraq was cooperating with its work. Five experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the peaceful use of nuclear energy under a 1968 treaty, arrived here on Friday to carry out routine checks of Iraq's nuclear and research plants.

``The Iraqi side is cooperating...and I hope that it will continue to do so,'' team head Ahmed Abu Zahra told reporters on the third day of inspections. ``The work is continuing and I cannot talk about results yet,'' he said, adding he expected the mission to end within the next two to three days.

The IAEA team has no connection with a suspended U.N. arms verification program in Iraq. The last international arms inspectors left Iraq in December, 1998 shortly before the United States and Britain launched air strikes in retaliation for Baghdad's failure to cooperate. Baghdad has since refused to allow the arms inspectors to return and last month rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for new arms inspections in return for easing sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Under the terms of a 1991 cease-fire, Iraq must rid itself of nuclear, chemical and biological arms as well as long-range missiles. The U.N. has to ensure that Baghdad is not in a position to acquire or manufacture such arms in the future.

Iraq has consistently denied trying to develop nuclear weapons but admitted carrying out related research. Earlier this month, Iraq agreed to the annual IAEA inspection, saying it did so under the terms of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iraq is a signatory.