Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have verified that none of the declared nuclear material in Iraq was missing, thus marking an important step toward the eventual removal of all sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq.

The IAEA team returned to Vienna on Saturday after taking inventory of "several tons" of natural uranium in storage near Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear complex, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

"The material -- natural or low-enriched uranium -- is not sensitive from a proliferation perspective and is consolidated at a storage facility near the Tuwaitha complex, south of Baghdad," said the IAEA in a statement.

The latest verification, the first of its kind since the Iraq war last year, was conducted after Washington airlifted about 1.8 tons of nuclear material from the Tuwaitha facility, which was looted last year, due to "security concerns."

The return of IAEA inspectors to post-war Iraq was not just to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), but also to write the final report on the absence of any WMDs in Iraq, so that the international community would lift sanctions imposed on the war-damaged oil-rich Arab country.

"This week's mission was a good first step," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said. "Now we hope to be in a position to complete the mandate entrusted to us by the Security Council, to enable the council over time to remove all sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq," he said.

The removal of remaining sanctions was dependent on the completion of the verification process by the IAEA and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), saidElBaradei.

The IAEA and the UNMOVIC are two UN agencies charged with finding WMDs in Iraq. The IAEA led the search for nuclear weapons and the UNMOVIC, for biological and chemical weapons as well as rockets.

Such inspections are required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which authorizes the IAEA to verify the correctness of any declared holdings of nuclear material, and the fact that the material has not been diverted to any undeclared activity.

Before the UN inspectors were forced to leave the country aheadof the Iraq war in March 2003, they reported finding no evidence of revived nuclear programs by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein,who was toppled by the US-led coalition.

However, after the war, the United States barred all UN inspectors from returning and instead deploying its own inspectionteams to look for Iraqi WMDs, the principal justification for the Iraq war. But US inspectors also failed to find evidence of such arms.

IAEA Director General ElBaradei had said that the US-led coalition forces in Iraq were not competent to prove presence or non-presence of WMDs in Iraq and that the only competent authorityto undertake the job is the IAEA.

The UN Security Council authorized UN inspectors to dismantle Iraq's weapons programs after the first Gulf War in 1991. Under its resolutions, the council must state that Iraq has no banned weapons before UN sanctions can be lifted.

Source: Xihua