Speaking after talks with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the Earth Summit, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz repeated an invitation to U.S. politicians to visit Iraq to check for themselves whether it had weapons of mass destruction.

"If the question of so-called weapons of mass destruction is a genuine concern by the U.S., this matter could be dealt with reasonably and equitably, but if it is a pretext for (regime) change ... then they will use whatever pretext that remains in their hands to attack Iraq," Aziz told reporters.

"We invited the Americans themselves, we invited the British to come. If they come for a special mission they are welcome because that is what we want them to do. But if they send people who will drag their feet for years without reaching a conclusion as they did for seven-and-a-half, that's not going to work."

Iraq's invitation to U.S. politicians with no technical expertise to make weapons checks has been ridiculed in the West as a ploy to avoid international monitoring of its armaments.

Aziz's remarks suggested he defined a "special mission" as the proposed visit by U.S. politicians.

COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION

But Aziz later told the Qatar-based al-Jazeera Television it would be "absurd" to allow the return of U.N. arms inspectors if Washington was determined to launch a strike against Iraq.

"If the United States has decided to attack Iraq it would be absurd for the inspectors to come to Iraq because they would come (only) to update their information about Iraq and its legitimate defenses," he said.

Annan told South African radio after the meeting that most Security Council members would like to see the return of the inspectors, who left Baghdad in 1998 after seven years' work, but that Iraq had indicated that it had "other concerns."

"They (Iraq) believe that they (the concerns) should be tackled comprehensively and they wanted an assurance that their decisions will not backfire on them," Annan said.

Annan said he might touch on Iraq during planned talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell Wednesday but the crisis would probably not have a big impact on their meeting.

Aziz said Iraq wanted a comprehensive solution and this would involve tackling what he called U.S. threats, U.S. and British air patrols over north and south Iraq, the lifting of sanctions and U.S. threats to change Iraq's political system.

(China Daily September 4, 2002)