MOSCOW, May 22: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he would work with his US counterpart George Bush on all fronts in a bid to repair relations marred by disagreements over Iraq.

Mr Putin said a common interest in global stability outweighed any international disagreements between the two leaders — the clearest statement yet from Moscow that it wanted to leave the Iraqi dispute behind.

The statement was delivered to the White House by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and the ITAR-TASS news agency reported from Washington that Bush welcomed Putin’s assurances.

The exchange preceded a meeting between Bush and Putin in Saint Petersburg, the Russian leader’s native city, on June 1 — the first face-to-face talks between the two since the Iraq invasion.

“Russia is prepared to develop cooperation with the United States in all spheres,” the statement said.

Mr Putin told Mr Bush “that there are many more things that unite us than questions that bring us apart.”

There was no immediate official reaction from the Bush administration.

The message was delivered hours before the UN Security Council voted 14-0 in favor of immediately lifting economic sanctions against Iraq and placing the country’s administration under effective US and British military control.

Russia’s initial reservations about the plan threatened to further spoil relations between Moscow and Washington.

But the Kremlin stressed it was satisfied with last-minute amendments to the draft and said the near-unanimous vote proved that tough disputes could be resolved through compromise.

“The resolution lays down an adequate basis for safeguarding Russia’s long-terms interests,” top Kremlin foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko said.

“The fact that the resolution has been coordinated means that the Iraqi issue is back in the UN legal field under the control of the UN Security Council,” he said.

The draft would immediately lift the sanctions imposed on Baghdad in 1990 and put its oil revenues into a new development fund to be held by the central bank and spent on reconstruction at the direction of the occupying powers.

The UN vote marked an easing of tensions between the pro- and anti- Iraq invasion camps that threatened to isolate Britain and the United States from Europe.

Putin offered Russian support following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

But those ties soured when Bush set his sights on Iraq — Moscow’s Soviet-era ally where it has major oil interests whose status remains unclear after the war.

US officials seemed confident that Moscow was moving back into Washington’s camp and would not hold a grudge about the campaign.

“It is clear that the Russians have made a decision to look forward and find a common approach” on international issues, said a senior US official in Moscow.

He added that Washington was not concerned that Moscow had been building a united diplomatic bloc with Paris and Berlin before the invasion.—AFP