U.S. says Russian convoy off-route
By CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty
Tuesday, April 8, 2003 Posted: 1:05 PM EDT (1705 GMT)
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The U.S.
ambassador to Russia has denied
claims by Russia's ambassador to
Iraq that U.S. forces deliberately
fired on a convoy of diplomats and
journalists in Iraq and says the
convoy deviated from an
agreed-upon route.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander
Vershbow, in a radio interview Tuesday,
said the United States "fully rejects"
accusations by Russian ambassador
Vladimir Titorenko that U.S. military fired
on the convoy intentionally.
The Russian ambassador was heading
up the convoy on Sunday when it was
struck with gunfire and shelling,
wounding five people.
The U.S. State Department said an
investigation is under way.
"This is a matter of extreme
seriousness," State Department deputy
spokesman Philip Reeker said in a
written statement. "The sanctity of
diplomatic personages is very important
to us as well as the international
community and must be upheld. No
determination has yet been made as to
precisely what happened or whose
forces were involved. We are trying to
establish these facts."
He said the Russian government would
be kept informed about the investigation.
Vershbow said that although it is still
unclear who fired on the group, it is now
clear that the convoy deviated from a
route out of Baghdad that was
coordinated with the U.S. military.
"It is already apparent that the Russian
ambassador may have decided, for
reasons we don't know, to take a different
route from the one we recommended
and instead to follow the advice of the
Iraqis," Vershbow said.
"We did everything we could to minimize
the risk for this convoy, while recognizing
that it was going to pass through areas
that were not under total control by
American forces."
In the initial departure from Baghdad, the
U.S. ambassador said, "there was a shift
in route, perhaps because of some
firefights ahead of the column, we don't
know fully the reasons, but it did seem to deviate from the prescribed route."
Members of the convoy, meanwhile, are returning home to Moscow from Damascus,
Syria.
A Russian emergency ministries plane staffed with medical personnel and
equipment, left Damascus at 3:37 pm Moscow time Tuesday.
It was expected to arrive at a military airport near Moscow at 8:30 pm. The Russian
ambassador's driver, who was more seriously injured, remains in a hospital in the
Iraqi town of Feluja, accompanied by one other member of the embassy, and
options for returning them to Moscow are under discussion.
The Iraqi ambassador to Russia, meanwhile, says Baghdad will not give Moscow
any official explanation of the incident.
Abbas Khalaf is quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that Moscow should "draw
its own conclusion" from the accusations that the Russian ambassador leveled
against the United States.
"There were no Iraqi troops in the area where the incident took place," he said. |
