IRAQ: The Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, has reacted cautiously to joint Franco-German proposals to deploy a huge UN peacekeeping force to disarm Iraq peacefully.
Mr Putin kept his diplomatic options open yesterday after talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Berlin hours after his Defence Minister, Mr Sergei Ivanov, said he had "no doubt that Russia would adhere to" the proposals.
"We don't see any reason for the use of force at the moment. Decisions based on the one-sided use of force will bring suffering to millions of people and increase international tension," said Mr Putin. "However, we don't think it is right to stoke any anti-US feeling. \ is in agreement that pressure needs to be put on Iraq." Mr Putin, who holds talks with President Chirac in Paris today, said Russia's position was "practically identical" to that of France and China and was thus held by a majority of permanent Security Council members.
Chancellor Schröder declined to comment directly yesterday on "any plans, secret or otherwise", saying the priority was to discover whether Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction.
"That is why both of us are of the view that [the inspectors] should continue their work," he said. "It is my aim, and that of the President, that the conflict that exists there be solved with peaceful means." However, he did call for the sanctions system to be "expanded wherever weapons inspectors need it", one of the points in the Franco-German initiative that emerged at the weekend.
The plan would effectively turn Iraq into a protectorate of the UN, and sideline President Saddam Hussein. Any breaches of the agreement by Iraq would result in the implementation of harsher, more targeted, sanctions.
It reportedly calls for the number of UN weapons inspectors, currently at 100, to be tripled and thousands of UN peacekeepers to be stationed in Iraq for a medium-term mission.
French, German and US aircraft equipped with special observation equipment could patrol the skies over Iraq. The existing no-fly zones in Iraq would be expanded over the entire country.
News of the plan caused confusion in European capitals yesterday. The French Foreign Ministry initially denied its existence, while German Defence Minister Mr Peter Struck said Chancellor Schröder would present concrete plans in the Bundestag on Thursday.
The plan was developed secretly over the last weeks by staff at the Chancellery in Berlin and the Elysée Palace in Paris, according to Der Spiegel magazine, which published the leaked draft.
Chancellor Schröder has said Germany, a non-permanent member of the Security Council, will vote against any UN resolution that backs war on Iraq. This new proposal, however, could help him out of the diplomatic corner he has painted himself into.
The proposals received a mixed reaction in Munich, where world defence ministers gathered at the weekend for an annual conference.
US officials were clearly irritated, saying the proposal diverted from the purpose of making President Saddam disarm. Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said in Munich: "We are making clear to every French and German that we find here that this is not the way to score points with the American government." He clashed with Mr Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, saying that "no sensible person" could still be unconvinced about the need to disarm Iraq.
Mr Fischer reportedly shouted back: "Excuse me, but I am not convinced." Mr Rumsfeld's visit sparked a huge anti-war rally in Bavaria at the weekend. Over 20,000 protesters turned out despite snow and sub-zero temperatures.
