ACCESSION NUMBER:350294 FILE ID:POL406 DATE:06/23/94 TITLE:UNITED NATIONS REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 23 (06/23/94) TEXT:*94062306.POL UNITED NATIONS REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 23 (Iraq/chemical, Korea) (610) 1.N. SAYS ALL IRAQI CHEMICAL WEAPONS DESTROYED The U.N. Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM) has announced that all of Iraq's chemical weapons have been destroyed. The two-year operation, which involved some 100 experts from 23 countries, fulfilled the Security Council's orders to eliminate Iraq's declared chemical weapons stockpiles and did so "expeditiously, at minimal expense, and with no damage to the environment," according to a June 22 UNSCOM announcement. Destroyed were "over 480,000 liters of chemical warfare agents (including mustard agent and the nerve agents sarin and tabun); over 28,000 chemical munitions (involving eight types of munitions ranging from rockets to artillery shells to bombs and ballistic missile warheads); and...over 1,040,000 kilograms and 648 barrels of some 45 different precursor chemicals for the production of chemical warfare agents," UNSCOM said. The commission sent two inspection teams to Iraq May 31-June 14 to make a final assessment of the destruction operations that were set up at Al Muthanna, a former Iraqi chemical weapons site. The inspectors were to confirm that all the chemical warfare agents, their precursors, and certain production equipment were completely destroyed and the site left in a safe and acceptable condition, the announcement said. The teams said that at the destruction sites "no significant level of chemical contamination could be detected and that all destruction activities at Al Muthana were complete." The "hand-over protocols" were signed at a formal meeting between UNSCOM and Iraq in Baghdad on June 13. UNSCOM said that while its chemical destruction group has been disbanded, it will continue to visit the Al Muthana site as part of the long-term monitoring and verification activities required by the Security Council's cease-fire demands. NORTH KOREAN SANCTION TALKS LOW KEY, U.S. SAYS U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said June 23 that she will continue to discuss the details of a North Korean sanctions resolution with fellow Security Council members "in a very low-key manner." Albright said that during a closed council meeting she was going to inform the council of the recent positive developments since former President Jimmy Carter visited North Korea last week. "President Clinton said yesterday that he views the developments positively and that some of the guarantees the North Koreans had given in terms of freezing their program allowed us to move forward," the ambassador told journalists outside the meeting room. The president said June 22 that he was satisfied that North Korea was willing to temporarily freeze its nuclear program and that the U.S. would open comprehensive talks in Geneva in July. Nevertheless, Albright said that the U.S. delegation at the U.N. is "going to continue consultations on a resolution in a very low-key manner." "When the talks begin -- at that stage -- we will be prepared to suspend the sanctions resolution discussions," Albright said. The ambassador has been discussing a five-point sanctions resolution aimed at diplomatically isolating North Korea in order to convince Pyongyang to open its nuclear program to international inspections. The sanctions included stopping all technical and scientific cooperation 1hat could advance North Korea's nuclear knowledge; ending all U.N. economic assistance; reducing the size of North Korea's diplomatic missions; curtailing technical, commercial, and educational exchanges; and a mandatory arms embargo. When she announced the details of the resolution June 15 Albright had said that "we do not see sanctions as an end in themselves but as a tool whereby the international community shows to the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) it needs an adjustment" in its behavior. NNNN .