The chief UN weapons inspector in charge of Iraqi disarmament will seek to persuade Baghdad today to drop restrictions on weapons inspections which threaten to plunge it into further confrontation with the West.
Mr Richard Butler, chairman of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, started his first round of talks yesterday "without any illusions about the seriousness of this moment".
Mr Butler said before the talks that Iraqi attempts to set deadlines for finishing his work made no sense, and he reiterated UN demands that the inspectors be given unrestricted access to search throughout the country.
"I earnestly hope that we and the Iraqi side can come to terms with the Security Council's requirement that Iraq comply with the decisions of the Council," he said.
Butler declined to speak to reporters after nearly three hours of talks last night with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Mr Tariq Aziz. He was due to hold further talks today before he flies out of Iraq tomorrow. He will report to the UN Security Council on Friday.
Iraq, which has complained that the inspectors are dominated by hostile Americans, has also threatened to implement a six-month deadline set by its parliament for the inspectors to end their work.
"This work can be done quite quickly with full Iraqi co-operation. It will end when it ends," Mr Butler said.
He added that he was also sticking to his demands that inspectors should have unrestricted access, including to "presidential sites" which Iraq has declared off limits.
The UN Security Council's "requirements with respect to access are crystal clear. The council has also said that in bringing about that access, we should find ways to show respect to Iraq's sovereignty, dignity and national security," he said. "We will be discussing that. It cannot be to the derogation of the principle of complete access."
Last week Iraq's relations with the UN Special Commission inspectors hit a fresh impasse when Baghdad barred an inspection team led by a former US marine officer, Mr Scott Ritter, accusing him of being a US spy.
Mr Butler took Mr Ritter out of Iraq on Friday, but said that if Unscom felt Mr Ritter was the best qualified person to carry out a future inspection, he would return to Baghdad.
He offered some conciliatory words to address Iraq's complaints that the inspection teams were loaded with experts from the US and Britain, the countries taking the toughest line on Iraq in the Security Council.
"We choose the best we can. Maybe in the future we will take a second look at their nationality," he said.
Several hundred Iraqis cursed the US at yesterday's funeral of dozens of children Iraq said had died due to lack of medicine caused by UN sanctions.
"These are coffins of about 70 children who died because of the embargo. It is a genocide committed by the American administration against Iraqi children," an Iraqi deputy, Mr Mudhafar alAdhami, said.
The coffins, wrapped in white linen and bearing pictures of the dead children, were carried on top of taxis.
Iraqi newspapers yesterday quoted health ministry figures as saying some 1.2 million Iraqi children and 300,000 adults had died because of shortages caused by the UN sanctions imposed in 1990 for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.