Russia does not want America to fail in Iraq: Putin
MOSCOW, April 2: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia does not want the United States to fail in its war in Iraq.
“For political and economic reasons, Russia is not interested in seeing the defeat of the United States in Iraq,” the Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying.
“We are interested in bringing the Iraqi problem back to the United Nations,” he added.
Russia has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the US-led war to oust President Saddam Hussein, and has urged a diplomatic solution to the crisis within the framework of the United Nations.
“The quicker this happens the better for all countries involved in the conflict,” Mr Putin said in Tambov, south of Moscow.
“The Russian foreign ministry will do everything in its power to bring the Iraqi question back into the framework of the United Nations,” he said, quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency.
PROTEST: Russia called in the US ambassador to Moscow on Wednesday to protest against air strikes it said hit Baghdad’s residential districts and endangered the lives of diplomats still working at its embassy.
The high-level protest dealt a fresh blow to strained ties between the Cold War-era rivals hours ahead of their first face-to-face meeting since the invasion of Iraq began two weeks ago.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov meets US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Brussels on Thursday for talks requested by Presidents Vladimir Putin and George Bush.
“Of course, our relations are experiencing some strain at the moment because of disagreements over US military action in Iraq,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and his Libyan counterpart Abdel Rahman Shalgham called for a swift halt to hostilities in Iraq and return to diplomatic solutions to the crisis, the foreign ministry here said on Wednesday.
“Both sides stressed that military action against Iraq must be stopped as soon as possible and the situation brought into the field of international law,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministers discussed bilateral ties and the situation in the Middle East “in the context of the war against Iraq,” it said.
GERMANY: Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of Germany, which has been one of the strongest critics of the war on Iraq, said late on Wednesday that he hoped the Baghdad regime “will collapse as soon as possible.”
His remarks, at the start of talks with his British counterpart Jack Straw, amount to an admission that, having failed to prevent the war starting in the first place, Berlin now hopes the US-led coalition will win.
“We hope that the regime will collapse as soon as possible and that we will have no further loss of innocent lives, civilians and soldiers,” Mr Fischer said in English.
“We hope this war will come to an end as soon as possible.”
He said the humanitarian situation in Iraq “is very alarming and concerning for all of us.”
Mr Straw said that Britain, which has been the United States’ closest ally in the war, still had much in common with Germany despite differences “which have been well aired.”
He said the focus was turning to how to manage post-war Iraq and he hoped a peace conference could be held on its future, although he admitted “we’re not there yet, we want to ensure that the military (element) can come to a proper conclusion.”
The meeting came ahead of a series of talks on Thursday in Brussels involving US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Mr Fischer said the situation in Iraq was very complicated and “we have to be creative about what we do,” particularly to avert a humanitarian crisis.
Mr Straw said he was “optimistic” that there could be a common European approach on Iraq’s post-war development despite differences over the conflict.
Mr Straw had voiced confidence in London earlier that intra- European relations could be mended after the rows on Iraq, saying Britain was “in a new phase of relations with our friends in Europe as well as elsewhere.”
Mr Straw was to see French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and Russia’s Igor Ivanov during a NATO meeting on Thursday in Brussels.
Germany has called for urgent humanitarian aid for Iraq, but has said it is too early to talk about reconstruction.
Paris and Berlin feel that talking about reconstruction now would mark a de facto legimitisation of the war which they had so fiercely opposed.
Mr Fischer held talks on Monday evening in Paris with his French counterpart. It was not clear what part the German minister would be playing at Thursday’s meetings in Brussels or if he would meet Mr Powell there. —Reuters/AFP
