The UN’s chief arms envoy to Iraq said Sunday he is happy with the progress of talks on Iraq’s elimination of weapons of mass destruction but expressed concern about biological weapons.
Richard Butler, who arrived Friday in Baghdad, met Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and questioned Iraq’s past missile, biological and chemical-weapon programs.
“We had a good meeting,” said Butler, chairman of the UN Special Commission entrusted with dismantling Iraq’s prohibited weapons. “We are happy with the way we are working together.
“The biological weapon area is a problem. . . . We have already started to talk about it, and we will do something further today and tomorrow.”
The Australian diplomat, who succeeded Sweden’s Rolf Ekeus in July, said, “We put some questions on the table this morning. . . . We set the experts to work on those questions, and I am hoping to see some progress.”
On the topic of missiles, Butler said progress had been made in the last five weeks, but some questions still need to be answered. The special commission took about 100 missiles in March from Iraq for examination in the U.S. and France.
