The Hindu : `Anti-war alliance' to mend fences with U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 12, 2003

International

International

`Anti-war alliance' to mend fences with U.S.

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW APRIL 11. The leaders of Russia, Germany and France will discuss in St. Petersburg a "non-confrontational" strategy of interaction with the U.S. and Britain in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq, a senior Kremlin official said.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was due to meet the French President, Jacques Chirac, and the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg on Friday and Saturday for talks on the three countries' role in post-war Iraq. The Kremlin official denied the St. Petersburg summit was a reaction to the U.S.-British summit in Belfast earlier this week, but admitted the two coalitions took different views on the role of the U.N. in Iraq. ``Russia, Germany and France share the view that the U.N. mechanisms should be utilised in full measure in Iraq,'' said a foreign policy adviser. The U.S. and Britain are prepared to allow the U.N. to play only a limited humanitarian role in Iraq.

The U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, was planning to be in St. Petersburg on Saturday as part of a European tour, but cancelled the visit under Washington's pressure. The Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, today reiterated Moscow's view that "the U.N. must play a central role." "The United Nations is endowed with unique powers which no other international organisations have,'' Mr. Ivanov said in Dushanbe, where he discussed Iraq and regional security with the other Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The meeting did not adopt any statement, as some of the former Soviet states opposed the war in Iraq, while others supported it. The CIS ministers "did not aspire to work out a common position on Iraq or on any other international issues that were discussed,'' the Russian Foreign Minister said after the meeting.

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