Bush and Putin demand Iraq disarm

RUSSIA - President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin have piled pressure on Iraq to disarm or face serious consequences, as Bush seeks to assure a skeptical Putin that NATO's new eastward shift posed no threat to Moscow.

The two leaders, in the grand surroundings of the 18th century Catherine Palace with a blanket of snow on the ground outside, also discussed the war on terrorism on Friday.

As they met, the two governments released a joint statement urging Iraq to disarm fully in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution or face "serious consequences."

"We call on Iraq, in strict compliance with UNSC resolution 1441, to cooperate fully and unconditionally in its disarmament obligations or face serious consequences," a joint U.S.-Russia statement said.

The statement did not specifically threaten military action as Bush has done repeatedly if Iraq does not comply. It nonetheless had the effect of piling more pressure on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to disarm his suspected weapons of mass destruction.

Russia, an ally of Iraq in the Soviet era which has key oil interests in the country, wants to ensure arms inspections are not used by the United States to provide grounds for a military invasion to oust Saddam.

Inspectors, last in Iraq in 1998, returned this week to proceed with checks to determine whether Baghdad holds chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

"We call on Iraq to comply fully and immediately with this and all relevant UN Security Council resolutions, which were adopted as a necessary step to secure international peace and security," the statement said.

At a joint news conference, Putin said: "We do believe that we have to stay within the framework of the work being carried out by the United Nations. We can achieve a positive result."

Immediately after the news conference, Bush flew to Lithuania, an ex-Soviet Baltic state and one of seven countries invited at NATO's Prague summit to join. He is due to complete his European tour in Romania, another future NATO member.

IRAQ CLEAN, SAYS MINISTER

Iraq's information minister, speaking in New Delhi on Friday, said his country was "completely clean" of all weapons prohibited by the UN Security Council. Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf said Iraq would cooperate with UN weapons inspectors.

"We are going to deal with (Security Council) resolution 1441 and deal with the inspection teams to facilitate their work according to international law and the charter of the United Nations to fulfil their mission," he told Reuters.

On joint efforts against terrorism, Putin vowed to help crack down on both terrorists and those who finance them.

He said "we should not forget" that 16 of the 19 hijackers who staged the September 11 attacks on US landmarks came from Saudi Arabia.

Since Russian security forces stormed a theatre to end a siege by armed Chechen separatists, Putin has said that Russia, like other countries, is under attack from an international Islamist conspiracy. A total of 128 hostages and 41 Chechen rebels died in the operation to end the siege.

Bush welcomed the arrest of al Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is under CIA control after his capture near Yemen.

"We did bring to justice a killer, and the message is we are making progress in the war against terrorists, and we're going to hunt them down one at a time. America, Russia and people who love freedom are one person safer as a result of finding this guy," Bush said.

Bush's stated goal on coming to Russia after leaving the NATO summit in the Czech capital was to reassure Putin that NATO's invitation to ex-communist states represented no threat.

"Russia is a friend, Russia is not an enemy," Bush told the concluding news conference alongside Putin.

Putin restated his skepticism, though he has long since resigned himself to expansion. He did not rule out closer Russia-NATO ties.

"As regards the expansion, you know our position well. We do not believe that this has been necessitated by the existing facts. But we take note of the position taken by the president of the United States, and we hope to have positive development in our relations with all NATO countries," he said.

"We do not rule out the possibility of deepening our relations with the alliance as a whole."

In Moscow, abound 100 demonstrators waved red communist flags and chanted slogans against Bush and Putin outside the US embassy in Moscow.

-REUTERS

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Feature: War with Iraq

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