Russia Still Favors Return of UN Weapons Inspectors to Iraq: FM

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, September 29, 2002

Russia Still Favors Return of UN Weapons Inspectors to Iraq: FM

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Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Saturday evening that Russia still favors the earliest possible return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq, attaching "particular significance" to this stance.

He made the remarks after trilateral meeting with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman and Political Director of the British Foreign Office Peter Ricketts.

The two arrived in Moscow on Saturday for talks trying to secure Russian support in a tough new United Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq, proposed by the United States and its closest ally Britain.

"As for the Russian position, we have repeatedly emphasized that we stand for complete and strict compliance with all existingresolutions of the UN Security Council on Iraq. We attach particular significance to the earliest possible return to Iraq ofUN international inspectors, who are to answer whether there are weapons of mass destruction there or not," Ivanov said.

"Baghdad has given its consent to the return of international experts without preliminary conditions. It is important to do all that is necessary to enable the inspectors to start their mission as soon as possible," Ivanov noted.

Grossman said he was very satisfied with the US-Russian-Britishconsultation on Iraq.

Ivanov on Friday said that Moscow had received no clear and irrefutable evidence that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. But in the meantime, he warned that any delay in the return of international inspectors to Iraq would be an unforgivable mistake.

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