UNITED NATIONS. Oct 9. The New York Times said on Wednesday that the French laboratory appeared to have found traces of chemicals linked to VX but delayed releasing the final results while Iraqi officials were at the United Nations, reports Reuters

The American laboratory in June said it found traces of VX but the Swiss laboratory tests came out negative.

But France denied the press reports. "Our conclusions right now are that we do not have any definitive conclusions about traces of VX on the samples." defence ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said in Paris on Thursday.

"Nobody could imagine that France would want to slow down the discussion in UN-SCOM." he said, in reference to allegations France had delayed revealing the test results.

He also urged the United Nations to hold its meeting of chemical arms experts so such reports would stop.

Meanwhile. chemical

weapons experts will meet from Octol >er 22 to 23 to analyse controversial findings among US French and Swiss laboratories on tests for the nerve gas VX in Iraqi warheads.

Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM). in charge of Iraqi disarmament, said the date might be moved forward if schedules of participants allowed.

The experts met last month but were unable to reach conclusions because of incomplete tests from both the United States and France, diplomats said. The French scientists were reported to have mentioned that they found a substance on one of two tests that could be related to VX.

Attending the meeting this time will be experts from the American, French and Swiss laboratories as well as participants from Russia and Britain.

An American Army Laboratory at Aberdeen. Maryland, in June reported it had found traces of decomposed VX on

one-quarter of 44 fragments salvaged from an Iraqi government Al-Hussein missile destruction site.

The United Nations then sent swabs to both a French and a Swiss laboratory. The Swiss tests came in negative while the French reported that they had not completed their analysis on a remaining four or five samples.

A second test at the same laboratory in the United States has turned out negative, UN sources said. But it was not immediately clear whether the same samples were involved.

Iraq has denied it put VX into warheads before the 1991 Gulf War and accused the American laboratory of faking the results for political purposes.

The UN tests results led UN-SCOM to suspect that Iraq loaded the VX into warheads before the 1991 Gulf War. contradicting Baghdad's contention that it was unable to stabilise the volatile nerve agent.