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Russia Challenges War Legality With U.N.
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Putin warned that "the decision to launch a war has severe unforeseeable consequences."
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MOSCOW,
March 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In the first concrete
act of protest by a leading anti-war nation, Russia stressed Friday,
March 21, it would challenge the legality of the U.S.-led war on Iraq
with the United Nations, as President Vladimir Putin warned that the
conflict could spill over into other regions.
Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia and other countries would ask the
international agency to rule if the U.S. war violated international
law, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
"With
other states, we will put this question before the U.N.'s legal
department. It is very important that these arguments (about the
legality of U.S. actions) are confirmed," he told the State Duma
lower house of parliament.
"This
is the only way that we can use them as a strong weapon," Ivanov
underlined.
"If
the U.N. Security Council describes the U.S. actions as an aggression,
appropriate measures will be taken. But if you or I describe them as
aggression it won't achieve anything," the foreign minister said.
"The
action has no legal basis and the attempts to justify it by resolution
1441 are not serious," he concluded.
The
U.S. administration claims that resolution 1441, passed unanimously in
November 2002, which threatened Iraq with "serious
consequences" if it failed to show it had destroyed weapons of
mass destruction, provides sufficient authority for the war.
Putin,
who on Thursday, March 20, called on the United States to stop the war
arguing it was a "serious political mistake," stepped up his
warnings of the risk to global security.
"The
crisis has already spilled over from a local conflict, and today poses
a potential threat to stability in other regions of the world,
including the CIS," Putin said at a meeting in the Kremlin.
The
CIS, or Commonwealth of Independent States, is a loose 12-country
grouping of former Soviet republics.
Putin
warned that "the decision to launch a war has severe
unforeseeable consequences."
His
comments came moments after Ivanov told lawmakers that the United
States was occupying Iraq since it sidestepped the U.N. Security
Council in its decision to launch the war.
"We
have questions about the planned military occupation of Iraq,"
Ivanov told the State Duma in a crisis report on Iraq.
"Without
corresponding resolutions of the U.N. Security Council, this
occupation will be illegal," Russia's top diplomat added.
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"If
the U.N. Security Council describes the U.S. actions as an aggression, appropriate
measures will be taken," Ivanov threatened
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On
Thursday, Washington unilaterally launched war on Iraq with
early-morning air strikes on Baghdad, under the pretext of ousting
President Saddam Hussein from power and "liberating" the
country despite mounting world opposition.
Russia
had struck an alliance with fellow permanent U.N. Security Council
members France and China, along with Germany, in a diplomatic drive to
block the joint U.S.-British unauthorized war.
World
leaders condemned Thursday the launch of a U.S.-led war on Iraq
and pleaded for civilians to be spared, with many of them accusing
Washington of flouting international law by attacking Baghdad without
U.N. backing.
Russia
Won't Expel Iraqi Diplomats
Ivanov
asserted Friday that Russia will not expel any Iraqi diplomat if asked
by the United States.
"If
we were to receive such a request, it would have no legal force and we
would react accordingly," Ivanov told reporters in the State
Duma.
On
Thursday, the United States said it was asking governments worldwide
to sever their ties with the Iraqi regime, shut down Iraq's embassies
and freeze its assets until "new authorities" are installed
in Baghdad.
Asked
whether Russia would back a new regime installed in Baghdad as a
result of the war, Ivanov underlined that "any actions taken in
regard to Iraq, or inside Iraq, (must) be taken on a legal
basis."
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