The half-hour meeting was the second between the two men since Monday, when Sabri gave Annan a letter saying Iraq was willing to let the inspectors return unconditionally after a hiatus of almost four years.

The meeting included the chief UN arms inspector, Hans Blix, who was to brief the Security Council late Thursday on the practical arrangements for taking up the Iraqi offer.

Annan "stressed the need for Iraq to provide full and unconditional cooperation" to UN inspectors and expressed "his confidence in the professionalism and impartiality of (the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) and its chairman, Hans Blix," spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Blix said he hoped to get off to a "flying start," and Sabri "pledged his government's full cooperation with UNMOVIC to that end," Eckhard said.

A day earlier, Blix had held an hour's preliminary talks with officials including Hossan Amin, former head of Iraq's national monitoring directorate. The talks are to resume in Vienna in the week starting September 30.

A council diplomat said the council wanted to learn from Blix "how quickly he can move, what he thinks a realistic timeline is."

But several diplomats said the council was unlikely to hold consultations before next week on the controversial question of a new resolution spelling out the consequences of Iraq's failure to comply with council demands.

Russia has said it sees no need for a new resolution at all. Britain and France are both ready to accept one, but do not agree on what it should contain.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said a new resolution should "make sure that if we start down this road, it is a new road, a different road with tough conditions, tough standards."

Inspections must be possible "any time, any place, any person," he said.

Information later emerged that a number of officials, including Annan, were involved in the writing of Monday's letter in which Iraq announced it would allow weapons inspectors back into the country, a UN diplomat said.

"We knew what would be acceptable to the Security Council and what wouldn't. Yes, we gave them advice," the high-ranking diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Annan and Sabri were in the same office on the 38th floor of UN headquarters, in contact with Baghdad by telephone, while the letter was being written, as was Amr Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League, who played a determining role in applying pressure on Iraq to let the inspectors back.

One diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, said "some people have come to equate a new resolution with a threat of force, but that is beside the point, because the threat of force is coming from Washington."

A new resolution should mark out "a non-military route" for getting the inspectors back into Iraq without the problems which plagued the former UN Special Commission, the diplomat said.

Sources with experience on the special commission said the practical problems which Blix wanted to avoid were a source of friction during the seven years the previous team worked in Iraq before it was withdrawn in December 1998.

When Blix meets the Iraqis again in Vienna, he would want answers to questions about communications, transport and accommodation in particular, the source said, adding: "You can't just land from a plane and wander around on foot."

The inspectors had a 24-hour hotline to Iraq's national monitoring directorate answered by an English speaker, and it would be essential to revive it, he said.

"You might have a chemical weapons crew waiting to leave their hotel at 8:00 am and the minders would not turn up," he said.

"If they went to a chemicals factory, there might be an 18-year-old soldier who had no idea whether he would be shot if he let them in without an escort," he said, adding: "That sort of thing was a constant source of friction."

Blix would also want to know "where he can park his helicopters" and what condition vehicles used by inspectors were now in, the source said.

"The rubber hoses and tires must have fallen to pieces in Baghdad's climate," he added.

The new inspectorate would need a secure radio link from Baghdad to its headquarters in New York and to be sure that its living quarters in Iraq were not bugged, he said.

rh-be/jlp/ceh

Nampa-AFP WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 190152)

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