Enigmatic Putin sows confusion

EUROPE: European states continued to pull in different directions on the Iraq issue yesterday with the UK rejecting a Franco…

EUROPE: European states continued to pull in different directions on the Iraq issue yesterday with the UK rejecting a Franco-German plan aimed at averting war and Russia warning it could use its veto at the UN Security Council.

Britain's Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, insisted that Franco-German moves to send more weapons inspectors to Baghdad would send Saddam Hussein the message that "defiance pays". While he still "hoped and prayed" for a peaceful outcome, Mr Straw said this could only be achieved if "unrelenting pressure" were kept on the Iraqi regime.

"For the international community now to lose its nerve would significantly undermine the authority of the United Nations" and would "make the world a much more dangerous place as dictators got the message that international law is mere words and nothing else".

Meanwhile, the French and Russian foreign ministers will show the importance they attach to today's UN report on Iraqi disarmament by travelling to New York for the occasion. Only four days ago, President Vladimir Putin and President Jacques Chirac signed a joint declaration with Germany, stating their opposition to war and their determination to continue weapons inspections.

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Yet Mr Putin sowed confusion during his three-day state visit to France this week. Yesterday, the Breton newspaper Le Télégramme published an interview in which he appeared to threaten to use Russia's veto in the Security Council to stop a resolution authorising military action. "If necessary, we will use our right to veto, but I don't think it's useful to get involved in controversy on this subject at the moment," he said.

Russia's position was "practically identical" to France's, Mr Putin added. "Recourse to unilateral force would be inadmissible; the inspectors must do their work, continue the inspections on the ground and demand that Iraq always accept what we want to know." Repeating Mr Chirac's words verbatim, the Russian President said war must be the last recourse. "War is not necessary. We can do without it for the time being," he said.

Mr Putin's remarks were widely reported to mean that Moscow would veto the resolution which the US and Britain are expected to table following the weapons inspectors' report. Yet on February 11th, in an interview with the leading French television station TF1, he said the opposite. He did not see "the necessity of having recourse to the veto", Mr Putin said. He sought "understanding" among members of the Security Council.

So confusing was Mr Putin's television performance that in an editorial comparing his equivocal Iraq policy to Russia's symbol, the two-headed eagle, Le Figaro yesterday reported that the former KGB officer had "immediately showed the limits of his commitment alongside Chirac and Schröder by declaring that, contrary to France, Russia did not plan to use its UN veto against the United States".

Seventeen days ago in Rome, Mr Putin hinted he would support President Bush. "If Iraq resists inspections, if it creates problems for the inspectors, I don't exclude the possibility that Russia could modify its position," he said.

Mr Putin has reportedly sought assurances from Mr Bush that whatever the outcome of a conflict, Iraq will pay its Soviet-era debt of $8 billion to Moscow, and that some of the oil contracts signed by Saddam Hussein will be honoured.

Some in Mr Putin's entourage said they had no doubt that for their leader, the "strategic relationship" with the US took priority over Europe. "If he can avoid a war in Iraq without angering Washington, he'd be happy to do it," a Russian journalist said. "But at the end of the day, he'll follow Bush."

Mr Putin has manoeuvred carefully so that Mr Chirac - and not he - will bear the brunt of Mr Bush's indignation.