RUSSIA: Russia yesterday vowed to vote against any new United Nations resolution sanctioning war against Iraq, and denounced as misguided and potentially disastrous, US plans to topple Saddam Hussein by force.
It is the first time Russia has explicitly warned that it will veto the resolution if it is presented to the UN Security Council in its present form.
Speaking at a Moscow university, Russian Foreign Minister Mr Igor Ivanov dismissed as "unfeasible" the demands for immediate Iraqi disarmament contained in a draft resolution from the United States, Britain and Spain that he compared to an "ultimatum".
"Russia believes that no further resolutions of the UN Security Council are necessary, and therefore Russia openly declares that if the draft resolution is put to a vote, then Russia will vote against this resolution," Mr Ivanov said.
He noted that a report from UN arms inspectors last week had strengthened Moscow's belief that the peaceful search for Iraq's alleged cache of weapons of mass destruction should continue, and that the use of force could "turn into a massacre" in Iraq, destabilise the Middle East and wreck the UN as the basis of global stability.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone to two anti-war allies, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French President Jacques Chirac, as the US tried to garner the nine out of fifteen Security Council votes its resolution would need to pass. Washington only seems to have four votes in the bag, and even with the necessary nine, permanent Security Council members China, Russia and France could still veto the mandate.
"All states, and particularly members of the UN Security Council, should act responsibly in regard to this complex situation, and decide in favour of a political resolution on Iraq," Mr Ivanov told Russian television before flying to Iran, a country that, like Iraq, has close economic ties to Russia but which Washington calls part of an "axis of evil".
In pointed statements at his alma mater, the Moscow State Linguistics University, Mr Ivanov told Washington not to over-estimate its powers of persuasion.
"Despite its obvious global economic dominance, Washington's claim to singular leadership in the sphere of security runs up against the covert or explicit opposition of a large group of states," Mr Ivanov said, adding that the world was moving towards a "multi-polar" model "despite fierce opposition from certain circles in Washington."
US presidential spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer said yesterday that Mr Bush "would indeed be disappointed" if Russia used its veto, a day after Time magazine quoted a White House source as saying Mr Putin had already assured the US leader that Moscow would not deploy its veto.