Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Monday, ahead of a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Naji Sabri, that Moscow supported ”pre-emptive measures” against global terrorism, but only under UN approval.
Ivanov’s comments strongly hinted of a reluctant acceptance of US arguments to launch a military assault aimed at unseating Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad.
Russia has furiously opposed an attack in the past, viewing Iraq as a key trading partner that also owes it roughly eight billion dollars in Soviet-era debt.
Iraq has been identified as a member of an ”axis of evil” by US President George Bush in an anti-terror campaign that has been supported by Moscow in Afghanistan.
Ivanov stressed that the fight against terrorists must be ”supported by existing, and with the creation of new, multilateral mechanisms,” Russian news agencies reported.
This, Ivanov said in a speech to Russian diplomats and students, was necessary to ”resolve existing problems — but it is even better to take pre-emptive measures.”
He added however that the United Nations’ role was ”as important as ever today.”
Russia, along with China, which Sabri visited last week, holds veto power in the UN Security Council.
Washington has argued that it does not need UN authorisation for such a strike because it would come under the guidelines of existing UN resolutions about Iraq’s need to comply with weapons inspections teams.
Moscow meanwhile has pressed Baghdad to readmit the inspectors in return for a lifting of UN sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Moments after Ivanov’s comments, the official Russian foreign ministry representative Alexander Yakovenko stressed that Russia preferred the Iraqi conflict to be solved ”at a political-diplomatic level.”
In his speech, Ivanov said Russia’s global view had shifted following the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
The world ”has changed remarkably… and unfortunately these changes began with the tragedy in America,” said Ivanov.
”The central role (in international stability) has become dominated by the fight against international terrorism,” he said.
The Russian foreign ministry earlier said that Ivanov’s talks with Sabri would be a ”a good opportunity to discuss our bilateral ties and the whole situation around Iraq.”
Some senior Russian lawmakers close to President Vladimir Putin’s administration earlier had suggested that Moscow’s main interests in Iraq are commercial — and that they have little interest in seeing Saddam remain in power, as long as existing contracts are honoured.
Washington had earlier been concerned by Iraqi claims that it had struck a new $40-billion trading agreement with Russia.
But in another sign of solidarity with Washington, Moscow quickly denied the Iraqi claim, saying it had only struck a framework trading agreement last year which did not carry any specific price tag.
Meanwhile, 71% of the British people oppose taking part in a war against Iraq without United Nations approval, according to a poll published on Monday by the Daily Mirror.
The poll found 41% believed an attack against Iraq to overthrow President Saddam Hussein would be justified if it were approved by the UN while 12% backed such a move even without UN approval.
Osama bin Laden, head of al-Qaida, was considered a threat to world peace by 77% of those questioned, while 75% named Saddam and 51% US President George Bush.
A total of 31% believed a new terrorist attack similar to those of September 11 in the United States was very likely, 7% inevitable and 51% possible. – Sapa-AFP