UNITED NATIONS — Talks with Iraq about allowing weapons inspectors to return to the oil-rich nation have had "a good start," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, and will resume next month.
"We are at a very early stage yet, so we should not claim success or failure yet," Annan said Friday, after briefing the U.N. Security Council on his meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.
"But it was a good start."
Still, the meeting on Thursday produced no sign Iraq would allow weapons inspectors to return — the first step toward lifting 11-year-old U.N. sanctions and a key demand of the United States and several other Security Council nations.
Giving the Iraqi government's first reaction to the talks, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told reporters on Saturday that the meeting was only an "exchange of views."
"It does not contradict Iraq's firm position regarding the (U.N. arms) inspectors who are, in fact, spies," he said.
Under Security Council resolutions, sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 cannot be lifted until inspectors certify that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles have been eliminated.
The inspectors left ahead of U.S. and British air strikes in December 1998 and Iraq has barred them from returning, insisting it has complied with the resolution and demanding that sanctions be lifted.
Ramadan said Saturday that if Iraq were to allow the inspectors to return, they would "provoke a crisis and subsequently pave the way for new U.S.-British strikes against Iraq."
Annan said the fact that inspections were discussed in the presence of weapons experts from both sides — chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and Iraq's main liaison with the U.N. inspectors, Gen. Hussam Mohammed Amin — was significant.
"I think it is an indication at least for now that they are taking this issue seriously," Annan said.
Both sides agreed to meet again in April. Annan received Security Council support to pursue the discussions even though U.S. officials emphasized they will not wait indefinitely for Iraq to allow inspections. The United States believes Iraq is secretly building up its military.
"We've already delayed far too long," U.S. deputy ambassador James Cunningham said Friday. "Iraq should have complied some time ago — a long time ago — and the inspectors should already be back in."
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said there were hints that inspectors might be allowed back "but they've got to be welcome under the conditions that are specified by the resolutions" concerning sanctions, he said.