MOSCOW, Oct 11: Russia will not accept a US proposal for a UN resolution threatening the use of force against Iraq, a senior Russian foreign ministry official said on Friday after a visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“The US draft resolution cannot be accepted as a basis for a future UN Security Council resolution on Iraq as it contains clearly unfulfillable demands,” Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Despite a key visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair aimed at swaying Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow maintained that a new regime of weapons inspections, not the threat of force, was needed in Iraq.
“The US draft resolution cannot be accepted as a basis for a future UN Security Council resolution on Iraq as it contains clearly unfulfillable demands,” Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
“If we are to reach a new decision (in the Security Council over Iraq) it should reflect the views of all members of the Security Council, including Russia,” Fedotov added.
The five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — are debating the shape of a resolution that would require Iraq to abandon its alleged quest to acquire and develop an arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
After two days of talks with Blair, Putin made clear that the case for military action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, accused of building a deadly weapons programme, was not convincing.
“Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data which would support the existence of nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received from our partners such information as yet,” he said.
But, in a firm backing of further talks between council members, he said: “We are ready together with our partners to search for ways to ensure the work of (UN weapons) inspectors in Iraq.”
“With this aim in mind, I do not rule out reaching a joint position (on the Iraqi issue), including a UN resolution,” he told reporters, admitting that “you need to take account of the negative experience of the work of previous inspectors in Iraq.”
Russia, an oil exporter with complex economic ties to Baghdad, has indicated that it favours a French approach to the crisis — a two-resolution plan that would only threaten the use of force, if it proves necessary, in a second resolution.
In Budapest French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin reaffirmed his belief in what he called the “the French solution” — the double-resolution — and stressed that an attack on Iraq must be the “last step.”
In Berlin, German Defense Minister Peter Struck said the congressional votes did not change Germany’s opposition to action.
Berlin’s stance against a strike, even with a UN mandate, has angered Washington to the point that Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are no longer on speaking terms.
Moving on from its domestic victory, meanwhile, the Bush administration made clear it would now focus its pressure campaign on the United Nations.
“A significant amount of the attention will move towards the United Nations now that Congress has spoken so strongly and clearly with one voice,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.—AFP