PRESS BRIEFING BY FRED ECKHARD
SPOKESMAN

UNITED NATIONS
OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

July 5, 2002

Excerpts

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Talks resumed today in Vienna between the United Nations and Iraq, as the two sides sought a formula for ending the stalemate between Iraq and the Security Council over the return of United Nations weapons inspectors to that country.

Expert level discussions took place this morning at the United Nations International Centre, after which Secretary-General Kofi Annan was briefed on their outcome by two senior United Nations officials, who had participated in those closed talks.

They are Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq (UNMOVIC).

In the afternoon, the Secretary-General met one-on-one with the head of the Iraqi delegation, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.  The full delegations then sat down for a two-hour final plenary session.

We expect that the Secretary-General will talk to the press once today’s session ends, and we’ll try to make his comments available to you as soon as we get them.

In his opening comments to the Iraqis when the talks began on Thursday morning, the Secretary-General said that the Security Council took note of progress achieved in the first two rounds of talks, and hoped that this third round would result in conclusive developments.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister thanked the Secretary-General and outlined his delegation’s approach to the discussions.

The discussions yesterday focused on disarmament, the questions Iraq had submitted during the first round of talks and the return of Kuwaiti property and other documents.  Ambassador Vorontsov outlined the mechanism for the return by Iraq of the Kuwaiti national archives, which was then discussed at the expert level yesterday afternoon.

Following the morning session yesterday, the Secretary-General and the Foreign Minister briefly talked to the press.  The Secretary-General said, “We had a good round and a very good atmosphere”.  The Foreign Minister added, “We exchanged views in a serious and earnest manner”.

Asked if he expected to achieve something by today, the Secretary-General replied, “Inshallah”.  The Foreign Minister was asked if he had gotten the answers he wanted to his questions.  “Inshallah”, he joked.

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