Baghdad connects return of international inspectors with several conditions

Baghdad will consent to international disarmament inspectors' return to the country after a number of demands are fulfilled, the main of which is to lift the 12-year economic blockade, wrote the Babel newspaper, published by the Iraqi president's eldest son Uday Saddam Hussein, on Wednesday. The newspaper quotes Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri who expressed his hope that the third round of his talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Vienna would solve all the unsettled issues between Iraq and the UN.

The US Administration is not interested in the success of the coming talks, the newspaper points out. Washington does not want the UN to act in compliance with its charter, it "tries to replace international legislation with the jungle law", Babel writes.

The As-Saura newspaper, the official press organ of Iraq's ruling Baath party, also insists on the necessity of the full, not partial solution of the Iraqi problem. The settlement depends on "answers to all questions" that Iraq put to the UN Security Council, it points out, referring to lifting the economic blockade, stopping the American threats towards Baghdad, abolishing the so-called "non-flying" zones, introduced by Washington and London, and nuclear disarmament in the whole Middle East.

The UN and the USA insist that the priority in talks between Naji Sabri and Kofi Annan is the return of international disarmament inspectors that had been sent from the country before the country was bombed by US and British airforce in December, 1998.