RUSSIA: Russia said yesterday it might send troops to Iraq as part of a UN-backed, multinational force to help beleaguered US troops establish control over the country.
The Defence Minister, Mr Sergei Ivanov, made his cautious comments as the US began casting around for anyone willing to support a new UN resolution that would give the international community a much larger role in rebuilding Iraq.
"It all depends on the resolution itself," Mr Ivanov said of a potential decision to deploy Russian troops. "But I don't reject it or rule it out."
Speaking at military exercises near the southern city of Astrakhan, the Minister seemed to outline Moscow's conditions for signing up to US proposals, almost six months after Washington ignored a deeply divided UN Security Council and invaded Iraq.
"It all depends on the unanimity of the Security Council, on how far we can really influence the development of the situation in Iraq," he said.
"A final decision would depend on the unity of the international community, and on how fully and how scrupulously the norms of international law are observed in Iraq."
Before and after the war began in March, Russia railed against what it called Washington's flouting of international law by invading a country without a UN resolution.
Mr Ivanov's words seemed to offer the US a glimmer of hope for success in the Security Council, despite the French and German leaders' rejection of Washington's current proposals when they met in Dresden yesterday afternoon.
Of the council's five veto-wielding permanent members, Russia and China followed France's strident lead in denouncing war, while Britain and the US stood firm in their conviction that only force could neutralise the threat of President Saddam Hussein and his alleged cache of weapons of mass destruction.
Five months after Baghdad fell to US troops, President Saddam has disappeared, no banned arms have been found and US soldiers are dying almost daily in bomb blasts and ambushes around Iraq.
"Terror attacks continue unabated, and terrorists of all kinds are heading to Iraq," Mr Ivanov said. "Russia is vitally interested in the quickest possible restoration of legitimate authorities and law and order in Iraq."
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is open to the creation of a multinational force under a US commander, but insists the UN play a major role in Iraq, particularly in political and economic affairs.
Russia wants its energy firms to help redevelop Iraq's huge oilfields, and Baghdad owes Moscow about $8 billion in Soviet-era debt.
Mr Putin is due to meet President George Bush at Camp David this month.