IAEA team to meet Iraqi officials before inspection

BAGHDAD, Jan 22: A team of nuclear experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was to meet Baghdad officials today before inspecting a site near the capital, an Iraqi official said, reports AFP.

The official, who asked not to be named, said the five-member team would discuss its work programme.

Iraqi newspapers stressed it was a routine annual inspection by the Vienna-based IAEA under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iraq signed in 1972, and that the mission had nothing to do with UN arms inspections.

The IAEA team which arrived on Friday night is to inspect Iraq's sole declared nuclear site in Tuwaitha, 25 km east of Baghdad, a month behind schedule.

The mission is due to last three or four days, team leader Ahmad Ab Zahra of Egypt said. Two Yugoslavs, a Mexican and a Russian make up the rest of the IAEA team.

The inspectors will monitor the condition of quantities of natural uranium, as well as 1.8 tonnes of low-enriched uranium left under seal when UN arms inspectors were forced out in December 1998.

IAEA experts based in Iraq were pulled out along with UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) arms inspectors.