MOSCOW, March 9: Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, left on Sunday for Baghdad, saying he would meet President Saddam Hussein for talks on the current crisis, Interfax news agency reported.

“We will certainly discuss the very tense situation concerning Iraq in view of the fact that the United States could launch strikes against the country any day,” the Duma speaker was quoted as saying.

Mr Seleznyov said the visit was organized at the initiative of the speaker of the Iraqi assembly.

Mr Seleznyov was formerly a member of the communist party. He was expelled from the party last May for refusing to obey party orders to quit his post.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin’s government gave notice on Saturday that it would do everything it could to block a UN Security Council resolution that might trigger the use of force.

Russian opposition to US military action in Iraq has noticeably hardened since last Wednesday when Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov signed a joint declaration with his French and German counterparts in Paris stating firmly that they would “not allow a draft resolution authorising the recourse to force to pass.” —AFP