UN arms experts will be heading to Iraq on Monday to re-open their offices and prepare for inspections after Baghdad accepted a Security Council resolution demanding its disarmament.
The advance team of 24 experts headed by UN chief arms inspector Mr Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) secretary general Mr Mohamed El-Baradei will set up their headquarters, with actual inspections expected to begin "a week or ten days after that," said IAEA spokeswoman Ms Melissa Fleming.
The team, comprised of 10 inspectors from the IAEA and 14 from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) that was set up to carry out the inspections, will start assessing what has changed in Iraq in the past four years.
Ms Fleming said Mr Blix and Mr El-Baradei would leave Iraq on Wednesday, leaving a logistics team "to immediately work on setting up a headquarters."
Under the UN resolution, inspections must start within 45 days (December 23rd) but serious inspection are not expected to begin until next year.
But Iraq has only 30 days from to reveal full details about its alleged weapons development programmes.
Arab League chief Mr Amr Mussa said on Monday that he would ask UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan to put Arab nationals on arms inspection teams.
The inclusion of Arab inspectors in UNMOVIC was first raised by Syrian Foreign Minister Mr Faruq al-Shara, whose country is a non-permanent member on the 15-member Security Council.
Syria sided with Washington in voting for the new resolution after saying it had received assurances from permanent members the United States, Russia and France that it would not serve as a pretext to launch a war on Iraq.
AFP