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Russian President Slams US, British Strikes Against Iraq
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is visiting the country's Siberian region, criticized the US and British air strikes against Iraq as "unprovoked actions" Saturday.
"In Putin's opinion, such unprovoked actions do not help settle the Iraq problem," Presidential Spokesman Alexei Gromov told the press here on Saturday.
Gromov said the president believed that "only a political settlement in strict compliance with corresponding UN Security Council resolutions" would solve the problem.
Several senior Russian officials, including Russian Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Sergei Prikhodko and Russian State Duma Deputy Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also condemned the strikes on Saturday, claiming them a demonstration of the warlike nature of the new US administration.
Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement earlier that day, saying that Friday's attacks "are aggravating the volatile situation in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf."
"These unprovoked actions demonstrate that Washington and London continue relying on the use of force in their policy toward Iraq" in contradiction to the UN Charter and other norms of international law, the statement said.
Twenty-four US and British on Friday night struck five Iraqi military targets five to 20 miles from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, using various long-range precision-guided weapons.
The attack was the first Western strike against the capital since December 1998, when the US and Britain launched a four-day bombing campaign to punish Iraq for expelling UN arms inspectors charged with eliminating the country's weapons of mass destruction.
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