U.N. chief refuses Iraq visits

CAIRO -- The United Nations chief arms inspector said he will not go to Iraq for technical talks until Baghdad approves the return of weapons inspectors.\nIn comments published Sunday in the London-based pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper, Hans Blix said such a visit would only raise expectations and potentially create a crisis if talks broke down between him and Iraqi officials.\nIn a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri gave the first indication that Baghdad might allow the U.N. inspectors to return and invited Blix to continue technical talks in Iraq "at the earliest agreed upon time."\nIn New York, a spokesman for the U.N. weapons inspection agency said Sunday that Blix's comments were made Thursday, before Annan received the letter. Ewen Buchanan said the comments were a response to a general question by Al-Hayat as to why Blix didn't go to Baghdad.\nThe Al-Hayat article did not say when the interview took place and the reporter who wrote could not be immediately reached, but the article said the interview was done following Sabri's invitation.\nOn Monday, Annan is to meet with the 15-member Security Council to discuss the Iraqi letter. Annan has welcomed the letter but said it was at odds with U.N. Security Council resolutions.\n"The matter is now being discussed by the Security Council and we will await the outcome of that and see what the Security Council decides," Buchanan said.\nA 1999 Security Council resolution requires weapons inspectors to return first to Iraq and take up to 60 days to determine questions Baghdad must answer about its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs.\nIn his letter to Annan, Sabri said Baghdad wants Blix and Iraq's own experts to determine outstanding issues about Iraq's banned weapons programs and to decide how to resolve the issues before the inspectors return.\nIn March, Sabri gave Annan a list of technical and political questions Iraq wanted answered. Blix addressed the technical questions at a second meeting in May.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell said Saturday that he did not take Iraq's offer seriously, saying weapons disarmament -- not inspections -- was the key issue.\nIraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Al-Douri told The Associated Press on Friday that he did not see any conflict.\n"This is a continuation of the dialogue and I think we have to finish this stage of dialogue on a technical level," he said. "If we have a dialogue nobody will be a loser."\nThe Bush administration is weighing plans aimed at changing the Iraqi regime as it believes Iraq has secret caches of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons -- claims that Baghdad denies.\nMeanwhile Sunday, Oman joined Saudi Arabia and Iran in opposing the threat of a U.S. attack against Iraq.\nResolving Mideast disputes should be left up to the United Nations, Youssef bin Alawi, Oman's state minister for foreign affairs, said in comments carried by Iran's official news agency.\nThe Omani official is on a one-day visit to Iran to discuss reports of an imminent U.S. strike on Iraq.