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Expert Says Iraq Crisis May Put To Test Russian-US Relations

MOSCOW, December 30 (Itar-Tass) - The Iraq crisis may put to test relations between Russia and the United States in 2003, Sergei Rogov, the director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies, told Tass in an exclusive interview on Monday.

Relations between Moscow and Washington will be seriously complicated if the US launches massive operations against Baghdad without the United Nations sanctions," the expert believes. He said "the United States' unilateral actions may upset the multinational anti-terrorist coalition based on cooperation between the two powers".

Rogov believes the Russo-American dialogue may be complicated also by "tension regarding North Korea that the Bush administration largely provoked". "Leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have now seized the initiatives in stirring up tension", the expert said. "Despite protests of the US and the entire world community, the DPRK leaders now announce and take specific actions to create nuclear arms".

Rogov said the United States that claims the role of the only great power is ready to use force against Iraq and North Korea to show that those who defy the United States will be punished. "Tension in the Korean peninsula escalates so fast that it approaches the level of tension regarding Iraq", the expert said.

"The situation is complicated by the fact that it precisely the Bush administration that announced this year its giving up the strategy of waging two wars at once". He said the US '"is not prepared to engage in two large-scale military conflicts simultaneously". "There is a wide gap between the United States claims to dictating its will to the whole world and its ability to do so", Rogov said.

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