IRAQ - Oct. 1 - Baghdad & UN Agree On Weapons Inspections.

At the Vienna talks chaired by UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohammad El Baradei, the UN and Baghdad negotiators reach an agreement for a resumption of UN weapons inspections, with an advance team to be in the country in two weeks. Blix says the Iraqi delegation has "accepted all the rights of inspection provided for in all the relevant Security Council resolutions". All sites, he says, are subject to "unconditional and unrestricted access". (The so-called "sensitive sites" are government buildings to which Baghdad has previously restricted access). But despite the agreement between the UN and Baghdad, US State Secretary Colin Powell said UN inspectors would not be going anywhere until the Security Council had passed a new resolution on disarming Iraq. "I think even Dr. Blix has made it clear that today's meeting was a procedural one: points of entry and things of that nature", Powell said in a television interview, adding: "He is very much aware of the kinds of things that we're talking about at the United Nations now. And I think Dr. Blix has done a good job of bringing this team together, but he is fully aware of the possibility - and I think high likelihood - that there will be a new resolution coming forward that will structure his work and his actions". UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also said the agreement between the UN and Baghdad was not an alternative to a tougher UN Security Council resolution. In response, Blix said that he was simply doing the job asked by the UN Security Council.