July 17, 2003
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called Thursday for new UN Security Council resolutions to pave the way for the deployment of peacekeepers to Iraq, as the US-led coalition admitted it faced a classic guerrilla resistance to its occupation.
"It is necessary for the UN Security Council to adopt new resolutions on the deployment of international security forces or whatever the situation requires," Ivanov said after talks here with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"That's the most likely way of securing the participation of a large number of countries for the sake of the situation in Iraq," he said, according to a Russian diplomat's Arabic translation of his comments. Washington insists that existing UN resolutions give foreign governments an sufficent basis to join coalition peacekeeping efforts.
"We feel for any country that has the political desire or the political will to contribute forces for stabilization in Iraq, there is ample scope within the existing framework of Resolution 1483," adopted by the Security Council in May, US ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte said Wednesday.
But several countries, including India, Germany and France, have indicated they will not be sending troops to Iraq without a specific UN mandate. And UN Secretary General Kofi Annan revealed Wednesday that he had discussed internationalizing the US-led force currently in Iraq with Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier this week.
"All of us should accept the responsibility to stabilize Iraq," Annan said after closed-door consultations at the Security Council. The Russian foreign minister said the increasing resistance faced by the US-led coalition in Iraq vindicated Moscow's consistent opposition to the conflict.
"Russia has not changed its position on the war against Iraq, which it considered a mistake from the outset and events have proven the Russian view right." In the face of mounting coalition casualties two-and-a-half months after Washington declared major combat operations over, the new head of US Central Command acknowledged Wednesday that the coalition now faced a classic guerrilla war.
"I think describing it as guerrilla tactics being employed against us is ... proper ... in strictly military terms," General John Abizaid told the US Congress. After earlier talks with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Maher, Ivanov also expressed reservations about the pace of the transition to self-rule in Iraq after the US-led invasion.
When asked to comment on the coalition's unveiling of an unelected 25-member transitional Governing Council Sunday, the Russian minister called for the swift formation "of a legitimate authority, elected by the Iraqi people." Coalition officials have made clear that they do not foresee handing over to a sovereign elected government for between one and two years.
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