World

U.N.-Iraq Talks Collapse

August 3, 1998 / 9:31 PM EDT / AP

Talks between Iraq and the United Nations on dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have collapsed, and the chief U.N. inspector was cutting his trip to Baghdad short, the president of the Security Council said Monday.

Richard Butler would be in New York by Wednesday at the latest to brief the council, said Danilo Turk, the Slovenian ambassador to the council and its current president.

Butler was unlikely to get clearance to fly out of Baghdad before dawn Tuesday.

"This is a difficult moment," Turk said. "It is not easy to have the discussions cut short, it is disturbing. We will have to see what Mr. Butler brings."

Turk said he had consulted with fellow council members, and was not clear yet what caused the breakdown in talks.

Earlier, Butler said Iraq turned down his proposal for a plan of action to end the inspections that began after the 1991 Gulf War.

"We did not make the progress I have hoped for," Butler told reporters. "I do not know whether we are going to meet tomorrow."

His comments followed harsh criticism by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who said Butler was serving U.S. interests by trying to prolong punishing sanctions on Iraq.

Aziz said the U.N. Special Commission was "back to its old games, to its old tricks."

The commission, which Butler heads, is responsible for ensuring that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction, as required by U.N. resolutions that followed the Gulf War.

The comments by both sides followed some optimism that they were on track to ending the inspections. But after the two rounds of talks Monday, the two sides seemed headed for a crisis.

The Security Council has said that the sanctions including a ban on air travel and limits on the sale of oil will not be lifted until the commission ensures the weapons have been destroyed.

Aziz accused Butler's team of ignoring the country's progress in reaching the goal and instead focusing on "minor issues which make no sense from the angle of disarmament."

"Since this is the wish of the American administration to perpetuate the situation, to prolong the current situation, to keep the sanctions on the people of Iraq. ... as long as this is the American wish, you (Butler) are serving the American policy," he said.

Neither Aziz nor Butler gave specifics on what was discussed Monday, but the "blueprint" Butler presented the Iraqis during his last visit in June calls for further disclosures about the country's missile program and biological and chemical weaponry.

"Butler had a road map," Turk, the council president said as he left U.N. headquarters in New York after what he described as a "long day" of consultations with other ambassadors. "That road map has to be developed further."

Aziz repeated Iraq's earlier contention that Iraq "does not have any wapons of mass destruction."

Last month, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein said that the sanctions must be lifted this year the first time he had set a deadline. Iraq says the sanctions have caused widespread poverty, malnutrition and illnesses among its 22 million people.

Butler had been scheduled to remain in Baghdad until Wednesday.