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CNN Live At Daybreak

Iraq Says Arms Talks Must be Linked to Other Issues

Aired September 04, 2002 - 06:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Powell will probably take more heat today when he faces questions about Iraq.
And for the latest developments from Baghdad, we go live again to the Iraqi capital. Our James Martone is standing by.

Good morning.

JAMES MARTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good afternoon from Baghdad.

Well, the latest is a message from the Iraqi president himself. Saddam Hussein is being printed in every single newspaper today. The gist of which is, he is telling his people, Arabs and the world, he says, that victory comes from within, and that one should not be confused, he says, by bad -- what he says, is fabricated media -- negative media; clearly a rejection of what anti-Iraq regime things are being printed abroad, according to him.

Now, the president, we are hearing, is, in fact, going to be meeting at some time today with Arab parliamentarians. Those over 100 Arab parliamentarians have been here since yesterday. They finish up a conference here today, which is aimed at, they say, confronting the U.S. threats on Baghdad. They are expected to hand a letter to the U.N. in protest of what, they say, are Arab people's rejection of any U.S. threats on Baghdad.

Also, we know that a senior diplomat of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister yesterday saying at the Earth Summit that he would be -- Iraq would be open to negotiations on the return of the weapons inspectors, if that included an elimination of the no-fly zones and the embargo.

A senior -- also foreign -- the foreign minister, Naji Sabri, in Cairo today for meetings there of Arab foreign ministers -- also to focus, in part, on these U.S. threats at the Arab League in Cairo -- says that they cannot accept any strike on an Arab country.

Back here in Baghdad, then, their meeting ending (ph) up today, sometime today of these Arab parliamentarians, the biggest meeting of its kind since the 1991 Gulf War, in which they will, again, the parliamentarians here saying they represent their people who are against any attack on Iraq -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, James Martone reporting live from Baghdad this morning -- thank you.

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