The invitation was contained in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, which said the talks could lead to a return of inspectors after they left the country in December 1998.

The letter said Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and his experts were welcome to discuss outstanding disarmament issues "to establish a solid basis for the next stage of monitoring and inspection activities and to move forward to that stage."

During their last three rounds of talks since March, Annan has been trying to persuade the Iraqi foreign minister to allow UN inspectors to return but failed.

At the end of the last round in Vienna on July 5 which Blix attended, Annan and Sabri agreed that technical talks would continue.

The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a US-British bombing campaign to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with the arms experts.

The world body imposed sanctions on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under UN Security Council resolutions, sanctions can be lifted only when inspectors certify that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been destroyed.

(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2002)