U.N. Secretary-General sees no sign Iraq will accept inspectors

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UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday he doesn't see any sign that Iraq is ready to admit U.N. weapons inspectors, as familiar conflicts resurfaced among members of the Security Council on the issue of sanctions.

Annan, who met Monday with Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, said "it wasn't evident" in their talks that inspectors would be allowed in the country. However, he added, "in this life I don't think one can say never or forever."

MESSAGE BOARD The role of the U.N. The situation in Iraq

U.N. sanctions were imposed shortly after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's military invaded Kuwait in 1990, provoking the Gulf War. The sanctions can only be lifted when U.N. weapons inspectors certify that Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs -- and any missiles to deliver such weapons -- have been destroyed.

Hussein has barred entry to inspectors since they left Iraq following Operation Desert Fox, a 1998 military operation in which 100 targets in Iraq were targeted by the United States.

Annan said he and Aziz did not discuss the oil market, referring to the oil-for-food program, a loophole in the sanctions adopted in 1996 which allows Iraq to sell oil as long as half of the proceeds are used to buy essentials for the Iraqi people.

Iraq has recently accused Kuwait of stealing its oil, and the United States has said it is ready to use force against Iraq if it threatens its neighbors.

Kuwait denied the oil theft charge, similar to accusations leveled by Baghdad in 1990 before it invaded the Gulf emirate.

Critics have blamed the U.N. sanctions for Iraq's economic decline and an increase in malnutrition, disease and deaths in the country. The U.S. has repeatedly countered that those problems are solely the fault of Hussein.

Annan said a desire to break the impasse between Iraq and the U.N. was evident during the recent Millennium Summit in New York, where many of the foreign ministers said they want to "get Iraq to cooperate."

U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, who has a team of inspectors organized and ready to travel to Baghdad, is expected to update the Security Council on Friday.

Meanwhile, Russia is planning to send another commercial air flight to Iraq this weekend, though it has not received permission from the U.N. sanctions committee.

The committee approved a Russian flight last weekend, which carried oil experts and humanitarian aid staffers, and on Tuesday, Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov told CNN that Russia believes passenger flights are not barred by the sanctions.

The U.S. and Britain disagree with Russia, France and China, on that regard, insisting that such flights are banned under Security Council resolutions.

Lavrov said a country only has to notify the committee of a flight and then "passengers can be executives, tourists, dance teams ..." he said.

The U.S. State Department has said it viewed the first flight as humanitarian in nature and thus did not object. Sanctions committee sources told CNN that the U.S. and Britain did put on hold an application by Russia for a second flight to Iraq.

The sanctions committee chairman's office said although the committee evaluated the first flight before approving it -- "it didn't fall through the cracks" -- there was an understanding among committee members that the flight was humanitarian and did not include oil experts that might be linked to Russian-Iraq business ventures.

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