By John M. Goshko
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 29, 1998; Page A10

UNITED NATIONS, April 28—Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf said today that an agreement negotiated by Secretary General Kofi Annan to permit weapons searches of previously off-limits presidential buildings does not entitle inspectors to an unlimited number of visits over an indefinite period, apparently contradicting U.N. officials.

At a news conference here, Sahhaf said the Feb. 23 agreement, which averted U.S. air and missile strikes against Iraq, refers only to "an initial visit and subsequent visits." While he was vague about how many "subsequent visits" might be allowed, he left no doubt that Baghdad does not intend to let them take place indefinitely and believes that it, and not the United Nations, has the power to decide when they should be ended.

Although Sahhaf insisted that Annan agrees with this interpretation, his remarks clearly contradicted statements by the secretary general and other U.N. officials, who have said that the accord allows as many searches as the inspectors feel are necessary in pursuit of prohibited weapons. Sahhaf did not threaten to cut off access to the presidential compounds, but his words seemed to be a warning that the issue has not been resolved and could lead to new confrontations between the United Nations and the government of President Saddam Hussein.

The access question arose as Sahhaf characterized as "very disappointing" the Security Council's decision Monday to continue the sanctions that have been in place against Iraq for almost eight years. Nevertheless, he said Iraq would continue to cooperate with the United Nations in hopes of eventually overcoming what he called "the campaign of lies, distortions and hypocrisy" waged against it by the United States and Britain since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The council has said it will not lift the sanctions until it is satisfied that Iraq has eliminated all its weapons of mass destruction. Sahhaf today repeated Iraq's claim that the proscribed weapons were destroyed in 1991. But that assertion was contradicted later by Richard Butler, executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with overseeing Iraqi disarmament.

Butler said his inspectors recently had found artillery shells filled with mustard gas in Iraq. Mustard gas, a deadly and crippling chemical agent, caused untold casualties in World War I and subsequently was outlawed by international conventions. He would not provide any details of the size or location of the find, or when the discovery was made.

"We have discovered an amount of chemical munitions with perfectly good chemical warfare agents within them," Butler said. "We tested a couple of them and the mustard was 97 percent pure."

Iraq's refusal to allow UNSCOM personnel to search the presidential compounds for evidence of chemical and biological weapons caused a standoff that was resolved when Annan went to Baghdad and negotiated an agreement for UNSCOM inspectors to enter these areas accompanied by diplomats.

In statements and assurances given to the United States, he said the agreement in no way compromised UNSCOM's right of unlimited access to these premises. Initial inspections of all eight sites were carried out in late March and early April and did not reveal any evidence of prohibited activity or equipment.

Sahhaf asserted today that these searches were "not an ordinary disarmament procedure" such as those conducted by UNSCOM elsewhere in Iraq, but "a special arrangement until the U.N. is completely assured that these American and British allegations are completely baseless . . . maybe there will be a subsequent visit. That's all. That's all."

Annan left today for Africa and was not available to comment.

U.S. officials said a humanitarian mission to Iraq by the private American relief group AmeriCares showed concern in the United States for the Iraqi people. A cargo plane landed in Baghdad today with 38 metric tons of medical supplies, the first airlift of humanitarian relief from an American group since the Gulf War.