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Putin takes tough line on Iraq, nuclear arms cuts
February 1, 2002
AFP

President Vladimir Putin issued a thinly-veiled warning to Washington against using strong-arm tactics in global diplomacy while confirming that Moscow demanded nuclear arms cuts be enshrined in a formal treaty.

Putin's tough message came amid signs that Moscow and Washington were making only limited progress in their ongoing negotiations over arms cuts and missile defense.

It also followed the firmest indication yet that US President George W. Bush was willing to strike against Russia's Middle East ally Iraq after describing Baghdad as part of "an axis of evil" in his State of the Union address Tuesday.

Receiving the credentials of five new ambassadors to Russia, Putin described as hopeless a pattern of international relations "based on the domination of one center of force."

Instead Putin said he favored the creation of "a truly fair international system, based on law and respect for the interests of each state, and capable of ensuring equal security for all nations."

He failed to address Iraq specifically in his remarks, but they appeared aimed directly at Bush's vow to strike -- on his own if need be -- against so-called rogue states that have been befriended by Moscow in the past years, and who stand in heavy financial debt to Russia as a result.

Bush's address threw a wrench into Moscow's bid to mediate an end to the stalemate between Baghdad and Washington over Iraq's refusal to comply with international inspections of its weapons program.

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, who had been expected to hold a new round of talks on the issue with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, cut short his Moscow stay Thursday and flew to Baghdad in what Russian news reports was a fit of pique over Bush's message.

Turning to another dispute that has cooled Moscow's warm embrace of Washington that followed the September 11 terrorist attacks, Putin told his Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov that he was dissatisfied with the US approach to arms cuts.

Ivanov agreed that Russia was prepared for "real, radical, verifiable and transparent arms reductions," insinuating that the United States -- which wants a loose framework agreement but no binding treaty -- does not want the same.

Putin's comments came one day after the Russian foreign ministry called for "a binding legal document" to be agreed by Washington and Moscow that would establish a ceiling of 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear warheads 10 years from now.

Ivanov is likely to voice Moscow's anger at suggestion that the United States might keep some of its decommissioned warheads in reserve -- rather than simply destroying them like Russia -- during a meeting with an official US delegation expected to be led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at this weekend's security conference in Munich.

The disarmament issue has shaken relations between Moscow and Washington, with Putin calling "a mistake" Bush's unilateral decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to pursue the development a missile defense system.

The United States on Wednesday declined to comment on Moscow's demand for cuts within the context of a binding legal treaty saying only that it had held "productive" and "substantive" arms control talks this week with Russia.

The talks are expected to resume in Moscow on February 19.

The two sides are hopeful that the disarmament issue can be resolved before Bush makes an official visit to Russia, which diplomatic sources in Washington said has been scheduled for May 23-25.

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