Iraqi officials have pledged to give "full co-operation and full transparency" to disarmament inspectors, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mr Mohamed ElBaradei said tonight.
"All Iraqi officials have committed to provide us full co-operation and full transparency," he told a press conference after a second and final day of talks in Baghdad.
"The Iraqis said they will do everything that is humanly possible to co-operate with the two organizations," he said referring to the IAEA and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).
UNMOVIC chairman Mr Hans Blix, who arrived yesterday to relaunch arms inspections after a four-year break, said he had two days of "constructive discussions ... about how we can resume inspections ... on the basis of the resolutions of the Security Council.
"We have touched upon many practical arrangements and been able to agree upon those," he said.
Mr Blix and Mr ElBaradei met with Foreign Minister Naji Sabri late today followed by talks with the same Iraqi officials they saw in a first round the previous night.
A foreign ministry statement said Mr Sabri assured the two men of Iraq's readiness to "facilitate the work of the two organizations" in such a way as to "refute US allegations that Iraq has been producing mass destruction weapons in the absence of inspectors" and thus lead to a lifting of UN sanctions.
"We have pledged to the Iraqi side to progress towards resolving the Iraqi issue," Mr ElBaradei said after the meeting.
A top adviser to President Saddam Hussein also told reporters that Iraq would meet the December 8th deadline to issue a report declaring all its weapons programs.
Asked if Iraq would hand over the report in time, Gen Amer al-Saadi, a weapons expert, said: "Yes, within 30 days as the resolution (1441) says, a report from Iraq will be submitted on all the files - nuclear, chemical, biological and missile files."
"We do not have any new programs and we will say so with all honesty and we will present again the old programs, with additional clarifications," Gen Saadi added.
AFP