Iraqi parliament president tells JCP it will unconditionally accept inspection

Iraq's National Assembly speaker, Saadun Hammadi, on October 13 stated the Iraqi government's willingness to accept United Nations inspections on the country's weapons of mass destruction without condition.

Hammadi gave these remarks during his meeting in Baghdad with visiting Japanese Communist Party International Bureau Director Ogata Yasuo.

Ogata, who is also a JCP member of the House of Councilors, was in Baghdad with Morihara Kimitoshi, JCP International Bureau deputy director, to monitor the Iraqi referendum at the Iraqi government's invitation. The two JCP representatives also met with Ghazi Faisal, director of the First Political Bureau of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

Faisal also said Iraq will accept U.N. inspections without conditions, and stated that the inspectors will be allowed to visit all facilities and sites including the eight presidential palaces. He added that Iraq wants to see the problem resolved as quickly as possible in cooperation with the United Nations by accepting new inspections and making clear that Iraq has no capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction.

He said that U.N. inspections up to 1998 showed that 95 percent of such weapons had already been eliminated.

Ogata said that a serious task of the international community in establishing the principle of peace in the 21st century is to get Iraq to unconditionally accept inspections in compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions on eliminating nuclear weapons and to settle the question within the framework of the United Nations and based on the U.N. Charter.

The JCP representatives said that the need is for Iraq to deprive the United States of a pretext for going to war and to implement UNSC resolutions concerning Iraq.

Iraqi national TV on October 13 reported the meeting between Hammadi and the JCP representatives. An English language Iraq Daily and a local Arabic paper also reported the meeting. (end)