International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors will return to Iraq in the coming days at the request of its government, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said here Tuesday.
"The IAEA will send a team of inspectors to Iraq in the coming days following an official request from Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari," ElBaradei told journalists on his arrival.
"The return of inspectors to Iraq is an absolute necessity, not to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but to draft the final report on the absence of WMDs in Iraq so that the international community can lift the (remaining) sanctions on Iraq," he said.
UN inspectors left Iraq just before the US-led invasion in March 2003. The IAEA had indicated it had found no evidence to back up US charges the regime of Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program.
On May 22, 2003, the United Nations Security Council lifted all sanctions on the country, except for those on arms.
Washington had opposed the IAEA returning to Iraq, but the US-led coalition formally ended its 14-month occupation on June 28, handing power to a caretaker government.
The IAEA began talks about returning to Iraq with the new Iraqi government shortly after it was formed, ElBaradei said earlier this month, but he had warned previously that the security situation could be a problem.
Speaking in Cairo, he said "it does not fall within the competence of the coalition forces ... to prove or disprove the possession by Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.
"The IAEA is the only competent party in this matter," he added, saying "international inspectors will complete the mission assigned to them before the invasion."
He said the IAEA's mandate in Iraq will "remain valid until the writing of the inspectors' final report, on the basis of which the sanctions imposed on Iraq will be lifted."
He had previously said the IAEA had work to do in Iraq "because we know they still have the know-how" to make weapons of mass destruction.
The US government announced July 6 it had secretly removed more than 1.7 tonnes of enriched uranium and other radioactive materials from Iraq that could potentially be used to manufacture a "dirty" radiological bomb or support a nuclear weapons program.
The IAEA and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) are the two UN agencies charged with finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The IAEA led the search for nuclear weapons, UNMOVIC for biological and chemical weapons, as well as rockets.