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Iraq, U.N. at impasse as negotiations begin

Richard Butler, the Australian disarmament expert who heads the U.N. inspection program, rejected an ultimatum issued Saturday by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who demanded a deadline for completing the inspection process.

Meanwhile, a crowd of demonstrators estimated at 1,500 to 5,000 protested outside U.N. offices in the Iraqi capital. The government-sanctioned protest demanded an end to economic sanctions against Iraq and featured demonstrators burning replicas of American flags and carrying coffins representing children whose deaths were blamed on the sanctions.

U.N. and American officials have termed the talks crucial in the latest confrontation between Iraq and the West, which has flared off and on since October.

The weapons inspections, agreed to by Iraq after its defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, are intended to ensure that Hussein's government has given up its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and its long-range missiles.

China assures U.S. of missile sales halt

Chinese sale of the C-801 and C-802 missiles, which Washington believes pose a serious threat to shipping in the Persian Gulf, has been a sore point in U.S.- China relations.

In a summit with President Clinton in Washington in late October, Chinese President Jiang Zemin had pledged to cut off the missile sales.

01-20-98