IRAQ: The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Mr Naji Sabri, and the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, held what both sides called good talks yesterday on the possible return of UN arms inspectors to Iraq.
Meanwhile, a prominent Iraqi opposition leader called yesterday for US military intervention to help overthrow President Saddam Hussein and liberate the Iraqi people, who he said were "ready".
Mr Sabri told reporters after leaving Mr Annan's 38th-floor office: "We started our discussion with the secretary general in a positive and constructive atmosphere and we shall continue this afternoon."
"They got off to a good start," Mr Annan's spokesman, Mr Fred Eckhard, said after the morning session, lasting a little over two hours.
The meeting - held against a background of US military threats - was the first contact with officials from Baghdad since two days of inconclusive talks ended on February 27th last year and lasted for a little over two hours.
"The first 20 minutes were a tête-à-tête between the secretary general and the foreign minister," UN associate spokeswoman, Ms Marie Okabe, said.
She said the two sides would resume for one hour at 3 p.m.
In contrast to views expressed by the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, Mr Annan said "the eventual suspension of sanctions" should be discussed if Iraq was willing to meet UN Security Council demands.
"We will be pressing for the return of the inspectors," he said, noting that the Iraqi team included "a disarmament expert" - Mr Hossan Amin, a former general and head of Iraq's national monitoring directorate.
Speaking in Berlin, Mr Ahmed Chalabi, chairman of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), hailed the link made by President Bush between the war against terrorism and Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, saying: "Saddam is the oldest and most adept practitioner of terrorism in the world."
He said the Iraqi people had taken hope from Mr Bush's unwillingness to see any further growth in the danger posed by President Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction.
"This has spelt hope to the Iraqi people for the overthrow of Saddam and the establishment of a democratic regime," he said, in a talk organised by the Aspen Institute, a US foreign policy think-tank.
Mr Chalabi, called on the US to intervene militarily to help overthrow President Saddam as soon possible. The US - which had made clear that it would prefer the meeting not to take place - released pictures on the eve of the talks, saying they proved that Iraq had diverted vehicles from a UN humanitarian programme to its army.
The pictures, a mix of satellite photographs, videoclips and Iraqi television footage, were shown to members of the Security Council committee that monitors UN sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
The Security Council has demanded that UN inspectors be allowed to resume work to assess Iraq's claim that it dismantled its weapons of mass destruction after being forced out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.