Moscow welcomes positive dialogue between UN inspectors and Baghdad

According to RF Foreign Ministry Department of Information and Press, Moscow considers it necessary to achieve a highly positive outcome in the negotiations between Iraq and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Committee (UNMOVIC). It will allow expediting the actual deployment of the UN inspection groups on Iraqi territory and will create necessary conditions for them to start an effective work.

On Monday, September 30th, the UNMOVIC delegation headed by its Executive Chairman Hans Blix and Iraqi representatives will hold a second round of technical consultations in Vienna. During the talks, both sides intend to finalize the discussion of practical issues of the renewal of the UN and IAEA monitoring and inspection activities in Iraq.

Moscow welcomes the positive attitude towards a serious and constructive dialogue expressed by both sides. It also supports the Iraqi initiative to cooperate with the UN on all levels in order to close as soon as possible its "disarmament" dossier.

The RF Foreign Ministry stresses that another way of showing Iraq's readiness to assuage the concerns of the world community, could be the success of the planned Vienna meeting between the Iraqi delegation and Yuli Vorontsov, the UN coordinator for missing Kuwaiti citizens issue.

"We hope that, during the planned meeting, we would finally reach a substantial progress in solving humanitarian issues in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions," the sources in the RF Foreign Ministry Press Department revealed.