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The United Nations commission set up to monitor and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction is continuing its work and stands ready to resume operations in the country at the request of the Security Council, according to a document released today at UN Headquarters in New York.

Despite damage to their Baghdad monitoring centre, United Nations weapons inspectors would be able and ready to resume their search for banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at short notice if the Security Council so requests, according to the latest quarterly report on the issue.

A seven-member United Nations inspection team arrived in Baghdad today to determine how much nuclear material, if any, is missing following reports of looting at an Iraqi site that had been under seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The top United Nations weapons inspector for Iraq warned today against jumping to the conclusion that weapons of mass destruction existed just because they were unaccounted for, but cautioned also against concluding that such programmes had ended in cases where the previous regime had not accounted for them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is planning to send a team to the Iraqi nuclear research centre at Tuwaitha soon to verify nuclear material under safeguards there pursuant to Iraq's obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the agency announced in Vienna today.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is discussing with the United States the modalities for a visit by its experts to Iraq to deal with the safety and security of nuclear materials at the al-Tuwaitha nuclear research center.

Alarmed that nuclear and radiological materials in Iraq may no longer be under control after looting and destruction at nuclear sites, the United Nations nuclear watchdog today called on the United States and other coalition authorities to allow its experts to return to address a possible radiological emergency there.

Voicing concern over reports that there had been looting at Iraq's nuclear facilities, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has asked the United States to confirm the situation and allow an IAEA team to investigate.

In his first meeting with the Security Council since the war in Iraq, top United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix made the case today for the return of his inspections teams as a guarantor of independence and credibility in the search for suspected weapons of mass destruction.

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog body told the Security Council today that the agency should restart its work in Iraq as quickly as possible and that it was waiting for new instructions for its return.