950805

Iraq declares germ

warfare programme to UN

BAGHDAD: Iraq has given the United Nations a written declaration on its past biological weapons activities, a senior U.N. envoy said on Saturday.

"The Iraqi side handed over a written declaration on its biological programme," Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with disarming Iraq under the 1991 Gulf War ceasefire told reporters.

Ekeus said U.N. experts accompanying him on his current Baghdad visit would discuss the declaration and then meet senior Iraqi officials for an initial assessment.

"We are now studying that (declaration) for preliminary assessment and we will discuss the situation and our assessment on a senior level with the Iraqi side today," Ekeus said.

On Friday, Ekeus said the United Nations had so far received nothing from the Iraqis on their past germ warfare research.

The Iraqi declaration is the first written document handed over to the U.N. on biological weapons since Iraq admitted last month that its research in this area was geared for offensive purposes.

The biological file is the last remaining issue between Iraq and UNSCOM which has said it would not recommend a lifting of a U.N. ban on Iraqi oil exports unless it was satisfied with Iraqi disclosures and verifications of past activities.

Ekeus said on Friday closing the biological weapons file will largely depend on the quality of Iraqi declarations.

Regarding latest Iraqi disclosures, Ekeus said they included the history of the biological research programme and "a technnical description of what has been achieved."

He said the Iraqis also provided documents in support of their declaration explaining that they destroyed the biological arms they had produced along with the related research equipment.

But Ekeus said UNSCOM needed to confirm the Iraqi statements. "That is of course a matter which has to be verified," he said.

Ekeus arrived in Baghdad on Friday to collect data on the biological programme and is expected to see Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rasheed, also responsible for Iraqi disarmament.

Rasheed was head of Iraq's Military Industrialisation Commission before being given the oil portfolio in June.

In Washington on Thursday, the United States' U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said Iraq could not be trusted to volunteer full data on its biological warfare stocks, although it has admitted to producing enough agents to kill every man, woman and child on Earth.

She said Iraq's biological warfare programme was begun earlier than it had admitted and involved more biological agents and more facilities and people than had been revealed.-Reuter