Russia held back on Wednesday from celebrating news that US troops have killed Saddam Hussein’s two sons, with a senior official saying that the development was still no guarantee for the future security of Iraq.
Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov said it was difficult for Moscow to judge how news that Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, had been killed in a shootout with US troops would help improve the stability in a nation where skirmishes continue on a daily basis.
”Of course we are following the situation in Iraq. We judge any set of events first of all by how they affect the actual situation,” Fedotov told reporters in the Russian foreign ministry building.
”The regime in Iraq has changed and the main efforts must now be focused on the process of reconstruction, an end to crime, the formation of state authorities, and the restoration of the very basic needs of the Iraqi people,” he said.
But Fedotov added in reference to the sons’ death: ”It is difficult for me to say how this fact can affect the future situation in Iraq.”
Two US soldiers were killed in separate blasts in Iraq on Wednesday, the day after the battle waged by US forces backed by helicopter gunships that left the two sons and two other people dead.
The two sons were among the most reviled men in Iraq. Qusay was the seldom-seen heir apparent to the Iraqi strongman’s throne and headed his dreaded security and intelligence apparatus. Uday commanded the Fedayeen paramilitary fighting force.
US authorities said their demise boosted hopes that American and British troops could soon wrap up the most crucial part of their military operations.
Moscow opposed the Iraqi campaign from the start and regarded Saddam as a guarantor of Russia’s massive oil investments in Iraq even though relations with him had long turned frosty.
Fedotov said those investments remained in jeopardy precisely because US and British troops had so far failed to restore order in Iraq despite US President George Bush’s May 1 pronouncement that the war had been all but won.
The work of Russian oil companies and other utilities ”is being complicated by a sense of uncertainty and lack of proper security guarantees”, said Fedotov.
”This, unfortunately, is holding us back,” said the diplomat, who oversees United Nations (UN) affairs within the Russian foreign ministry.
Moscow said it fully supported UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s call on Tuesday for an early end to the military occupation of Iraq.
”The sooner the sovereignty of Iraq is restored, the better it will be for the Iraqi people, and for the whole region,” Fedotov said, while offering no timeline of his own for when Russia thought this should be achieved.
He was also non-committal about the possibility of other nations like Russia joining a peacekeeping force in Iraq to help the increasingly overwhelmed and exhausted US and British troops — a call recently made by Washington.
He said the UN Security Council had not discussed the option during its Tuesday session in New York. Fedotov also was vague about what Russia would do should such a proposal be officially tabled at the council.
”So far no one has made such a proposal to the Security Council, and this idea is not being discussed. When the proposal is tabled, Russia is prepared to take part, in a constructive fashion, in discussing these proposals and ideas.
”Then we can determine what position we should take in regards to these proposals.”
His comments came just as Russia withdrew its last peacekeepers serving in Kosovo because the operation was too costly for the country’s cash-strapped armed forces. – Sapa-AFP