The chief UN arms negotiator, Mr Richard Butler, said yesterday he hopes to give the all-clear on Iraq's disarmament in October, paving the way for a lifting of sanctions, thanks to an accelerated work schedule.
"I am very positive about this. This is good news," said the chairman of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) for disarming Iraq, who on Sunday announced an accord on a two-month action plan.
"I think the light at the end of the tunnel today is more visible than it has been for a very long time," he said, referring to Iraqi hopes for an end to the sanctions in force since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Mr Butler told a press conference at the end of a five-day mission that he hoped UNSCOM could in October finalise a report on paragraph 22 of UN Security Council Resolution 687 if Iraq cooperates in full.
The paragraph calls for a lifting of an oil embargo once UNSCOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency certify the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and switch from arms inspections to long-term monitoring.
"I think we should be in a position to begin to prepare a final paragraph 22 report required by the Security Council that Iraq has completed all of the actions required of it with respect to disarmament," he said.
Mr Butler was hopeful it would be ready for his next six-monthly report to the Security Council, in October.
Iraq's part of the bargain was "to give us access to materials and documents that we need to verify what remains of their weapons of mass destruction," Mr Butler said.
He said the two-month programme would "impose a very significant new workload" on UNSCOM. Experts from UNSCOM left for Nibai, north of here, as part of a search for destroyed missile warheads, the UNSCOM chief said, before travelling himself to Kuwait.
Mr Butler said he and Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, who held four rounds of intensive talks on Saturday and Sunday, would meet again on August 9th "to evaluate the progress of work" on the new programme.
He said the new schedule would not have been possible without the February 23rd accord which Baghdad signed with the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, on arms inspections.