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It is in the breaking news sidebar!
Posted on 04/11/2003 9:09:47 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
ST.PETERSBURG, Russia, Apr 11, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday welcomed the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government but said the U.S.-led war on Iraq had undermined international law and the very concept of sovereignty.
Speaking between meetings with his two main allies in the opposition to the war on Iraq, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac, Putin called for the leading role in settling the conflict to be restored to the United Nations.
"Obviously the toppling of a tyrannical regime was a plus. But the human losses, the humanitarian catastrophe, the destruction are all negatives," Putin told a forum of German and Russian politicians and businessmen. He said the system of international law had also been shaken by the war.
"We must remember that up to 80 percent of the world's nations do not meet European democratic standards, but only the people of these nations can determine their future. The principle of sovereignty should remain unshakable," Putin said. "And another question is are those nations ready for the introduction of democracy?"
Putin and Schroeder attended the forum after bilateral talks that Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko said focused on economic and cultural ties. Putin was to meet later with Chirac and then with both leaders.
Prikhodko said the summit would look for "nonconfrontational" ways of cooperation with Washington and London in rebuilding Iraq.
Both Putin and Schroeder said the United Nations should now be given a leading role in Iraq.
"The coalition forces must ensure law and order, and the United Nations must take charge of postwar reconstruction," Schroeder said.
Earlier Friday, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia was hoping that the United Nations would play "the central role" in Iraq.
"The United Nations is endowed with unique powers that other international organizations do not have," Ivanov told reporters in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, where he was attending a meeting of foreign ministers from former Soviet republics. "And these powers are necessary to use in order to quickly find the route to normalizing the situation in Iraq. This is in the interests of the Iraqi people and the interests of stability in the region as a whole."
U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at a Belfast summit earlier this week that the United Nations should play a vital role in rebuilding Iraq but that its role had not been defined.
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz flatly told a Senate panel Thursday that the United Nations "can't be in charge."
Wolfowitz also suggested that Russia, France and Germany could contribute to postwar reconstruction by writing off Iraq's debts.
Russia is owed at least US$7 billion in Soviet-era debt by Baghdad and is seeking to protect lucrative contracts signed by Russian companies to develop Iraq's oil industry.
Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, criticized the call, saying it was up to Iraq, not the United States, to negotiate its obligations.
"Iraq is not the 51st state of America," Seleznyov said in comments broadcast on Russia's Channel One television. "All debt issues will be resolved only with the lawful government of Iraq."
Schroeder's visit had been planned long ago, but Friday's summit was hastily transformed into a three-way affair following the Belfast summit.
Er, no.
Is Putin suggesting that Russia is in the 80% or the 20% category?
"Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday welcomed the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government but said the U.S.-led war on Iraq had undermined international law and the very concept of sovereignty."
There isn't a "world court", there isn't any "international law"...What is Vlad Im-putin-t saying? That we are governed by a world government?
I'm sure the outcome will be just as relevant as the Axis of Weasels coordinating policy on Iraq.
I'd love to comment, but I'm off to a meeting to coordinate policy on Manned Space Flight to the Andromeda Galaxy.Hey, I'm going to that meeting also. Maybe we could do lunch? :)
There's so much inviting stuff in this article I scarcely know where to begin.
Sovereignty was exercised by the U.S. in pursuing this necessary battle in spite of the blockades put up by the U.N.
Sovereignty was exercised by the U.S. in rejecting membership in the International Court.
Sovereignty was exercised by the U.S. in developing a coalition of more than thirty other sovereign states to pursuing the necessary actions against the Axis of Evil.
That was, in summary, Lady Thatcher's argument when she was cool to the idea of a European Union.
As I've grown older and wiser, I recognize that time has proven her to be right quite often. Ditto President Reagan.
We've got the UN on the ropes. I can see no reason at all why we shouldn't just finish them off now. I'm sure we'll live to regret it if we don't.
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