Putin on Negative Impacts of US Unilateral Operation Against Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, February 10, 2003

Putin on Negative Impacts of US Unilateral Operation Against Iraq

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday warned the world of serious negative consequences of a unilateral US operation against Iraq.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday warned the world of serious negative consequences of a unilateral US operation against Iraq.

"Unilateral actions would be a serious mistake," Putin said in an interview with France-3 television before his three-day official visit to France on Feb. 10 - 12.

"First, the UN Security Council and the anti-terrorist coalition would come under a real threat of being split," he was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

"Furthermore, they might provoke Iraq's disintegration, entailing consequences for its neighbors that are difficult to predict, complicate the Middle East settlement and, of course, radicalize the Islamic world, all of which could raise a new wave of terrorist acts and damage the leadership of Muslim states that are guided by democratic principles," Putin noted.

"Practically all leaders of the UN Security Council member states, including US President George W. Bush, as he told me himself, believe that the problem could still be solved peacefully," Putin said.

Putin called for continuation of UN weapons inspections in Iraq,noting that there are no grounds so far for the use of force.

"There is nothing in the UN Charter that would empower the UN Security Council to pass a resolution on changing the political regime in one or another country, whether we like that regime or not," Putin said.

The only task of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq is to make sure that Baghdad has no weapons of mass destruction or to find them and force Iraq to destroy them, not to remove Saddam Hussein from power, stressed Putin.

Russia and France, two permanent members of the UN Security Council, have repeatedly expressed their opposition to military actions against Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council.

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