Russia Says It Will Vote Against U.S.-Backed Resolution on Iraq
nytimes.com
March 10, 2003
Russia Says It Will Vote Against U.S.-Backed Resolution on Iraq
By MICHAEL WINES
MOSCOW, March 10 — Russia said flatly today that it would vote against a revised United Nations resolution giving Iraq until March 17 to show convincing evidence of disarmament or face military action, signaling that a weekend of American lobbying for the proposal had come to naught.
In a speech here, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said Russia "did not hear serious arguments for the use of force" in Friday's climactic session of the Security Council, during which the United States said that the existing resolution demanding that Iraq disarm had proven too weak.
"Russia believes that no additional resolutions of the U.N. Security Council are necessary now," Mr. Ivanov said. "Therefore Russia openly states that if the draft resolution currently introduced for consideration and which contains impractical ultimatums is put to a vote, Russia will vote against this resolution."
While Mr. Ivanov did not use the word veto, Russia's status as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council means that its no vote, if the measure was facing passage by other members, would automatically kill the resolution. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman later confirmed that Mr. Ivanov was promising to veto the measure if it comes to a vote.
On Sunday Secretary of State Colin L. Powell expressed guarded optimism that a majority of the 16 members of the Security Council would support the resolution, sponsored by the United States, Britain and Spain, should it come to a vote.
Mr. Ivanov's statement today, during a speech at Moscow State Linguistics University, appeared to make that effort moot. But he did not address the possibility that Washington and London might further modify the resolution to win more support, a prospect held out by some Western diplomats.
The United States has put heavy pressure on the Kremlin in the last two weeks to refrain from opposing a military threat against Iraq, including open hints that Russian opposition could cost it valuable oil rights, billions in unpaid Iraqi debts and part of the goodwill it has built up with Washington over the last 18 months.
But that campaign has failed to move President Vladimir V. Putin, and Russia has taken an increasingly hard-line stance against the use of force in Iraq as the date for a United Nations vote on the issue has drawn closer.
Mr. Ivanov's pledge today to veto the resolution was not unexpected. Indeed, he said in an interview with Russian television after his speech that it did not reflect a change in policy.
The Kremlin said on Thursday that it was prepared to veto an earlier American-backed resolution that declared Iraq in defiance of the United Nations and which implicitly gave a go-ahead for an invasion.
On Saturday, after that resolution had been replaced by the proposal for a March 17 deadline, Mr. Ivanov called that deadline unjustified and promised that Russia would do everything it could to block its adoption.
Today Mr. Ivanov warned that a United States strike against Iraq would prove such an unbalanced match of forces that civilian casualties and widespread destruction would be inevitable. |
