A top Russian diplomat said Saturday Moscow believes the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has not been resolved and the United Nations is duty-bound to close the issue.

UN inspectors said in spring 2003 that Iraq did not have ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction but questions remain regarding Iraq's industrial capacities, laboratories and materials that were earlier controlled by the United Nations, Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Fedotov is a member of the College of Commissioners of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) for Iraq.

"The UNMOVIC and International Atomic Energy Agency mandates in Iraq were forcefully suspended by the war," Fedotov said three days before a regular session of the UNMOVIC College of Commissioners in New York.

Cameras were installed earlier to monitor those facilities and experts regularly reported their condition, but the condition of those facilities has remained unknown since then, Fedotov said.

"Who should provide this control, especially in the current situation of continued instability in Iraq? This problem should be resolved," Fedotov said, adding the United Nations should put an end to the issue.

Russia endorses the return of UN inspectors to Iraq to continue their work, Fedotov said.

The Russian diplomat also said it is necessary to clarify the fate of rockets discovered in Iraq before the war whose range slightly exceeded limits set by the UN Security Council.

Fedotov was apparently referring to Al Samoud 2 missiles, which UN monitors said Iraq had begun destroying under international pressure before the war started in March 2003.

"Not all the rockets were destroyed because of the war, and nobody knows now what happened to them. And this is a question," Fedotov said.

Source: Xinhua