Iraq: UN Settlement the Only Alternative, Russia Says

by Michael Stedman
issued on 05 June 2002 MCK

Russia's government raised the curtain on Moscow talks with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday by maintaining the UN was the only forum for solving the conflict over Iraq.

Russia's government raised the curtain on Moscow talks with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday by maintaining the UN was the only forum for solving the conflict over Iraq.

"We do not see an alternative to a comprehensive settlement within UN legal arrangements," said foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko as Russian officials prepared for top-level talks.

Annan is in the Russian capital today and tomorrow for meetings aimed at strengthening the UN's role in response to global security threats, his first visit to Moscow since last year's attacks on New York and Washington, the ministry spokesman said in opening comments.

The UN official also sees Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and parliamentary leaders for talks "to buttress, enhance and consolidate" the organization's practical potential, Yakovenko told Russian agency RIA-Novosti.

Top priorities facing the international community included the formation of a global anti-terror network with the UN and its Security Council as coordinators.

"There is a growing realization of the necessity to efficiently use the United Nations' unique opportunities as a basic mechanism of international affairs regulation," he added.

"In teamwork with many other countries and with the UN Secretary-General, Russia is making use of those positive trends to promote UN-sponsored international arrangements based on the norms and principles of the UN Charter, international law and multilateral approaches to the most complex problems," Yakovenko said.

In vision's of a new "European architecture of security," President Putin told a Chinese newspaper Russia "is intent to cooperate most closely with the countries of the European continent" in active association with all European organizations and institutions. These included the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, the European Union and NATO.

Putin told China's Renmin Ribao the OSCE's unique geographical membership, experience of partnership between states and accumulated tools for dealing with security and cooperation issues had to become key elements of a new European security structure.

"Far from full use of this organization's potential was, regrettably, made in the past few years," he was quoted as saying. Now, it had embarked on "large-scale and serious tasks of European scale."

http://www.russianobserver.com/print/15496.html  russianobserver.com