RUSSIA: Russia delivered a thinly-veiled rebuke to Washington and London yesterday, saying that international arms inspectors were coming under pressure to leave Iraq or deliver reports that could lead to a US-led war in the Gulf.
Foreign Minister Mr Igor Ivanov also reiterated Moscow's opposition to any United Nations resolution sanctioning military action against Baghdad, even as US and British diplomats were preparing such a document for presentation to the UN Security Council.
"The inspectors are being subjected to very strong pressure in order to provoke their departure from Iraq, as occurred in 1998, or to present the Security Council with assessments that could be used as a pretext for the use of force against Iraq," Mr Ivanov said.
"We urge the international inspectors to continue to fulfil their professional activity objectively. The international community should offer them all vital political assistance and not put pressure on them."
Mr Ivanov declined to name the source of the "pressure", but he has criticised US and British attempts to force the pace of developments in Iraq, where Washington says President Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction and maintains links with the al-Qaeda terror network.
The arms inspectors, who have urged greater cooperation from Baghdad, are due to report to the UN Security Council on March 1st and diplomats expect the US and Britain to push for a vote on a resolution authorising force against Iraq shortly afterwards.
Mr Ivanov said, along with fellow veto-wielding members of the Security Council, France and China, Russia still backed a peaceful resolution to the Iraq crisis, in line with the current UN resolution, and urged Iraq to work more closely with the arms inspectors.
"In strict accordance with this resolution, Baghdad should provide all necessary co-operation to the international inspectors and show maximum openness," Mr Ivanov said. "The sooner we receive concrete results of the inspectors' activities, the higher the chances for a political settlement."
It was too soon to discuss Russia's use of veto to block a resolution authorising force, Mr Ivanov insisted. But he was more forthright in an interview in Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra yesterday. "We are not against a second resolution in principle, but we must see what purpose it would serve," he said. "If the resolution aims to reinforce the mandate of the inspectors, we will be ready to look at it. If it is designed to allow the use of force, we believe it would be detrimental."
Analysts believe Moscow wants US guarantees that Russian contracts to develop Iraq's oil reserves would be honoured if Mr Hussein were toppled. Economists also fear Western firms would flood the market with Iraqi crude, depressing the soaring prices that have bolstered the coffers of major oil exporter Moscow. Russia's Central Bank said yesterday its foreign currency and gold reserves were bigger than ever, thanks to burgeoning oil revenues.