Global Policy Forum

Any use of force against Iraq would require a second vote in the United Nations Security Council, French President Jacques Chirac said on Friday, describing a war as "the worst of all solutions."

Chirac spoke alongside visiting Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, who endorsed the statement on the need for a second UN resolution. "There still exists an alternative to war. It is the responsibility of each of the members of the security council to explore it to the end," the French leader said.

"The decision to resort to war cannot be taken lightly. It is always a sign of failure and the worst of all solutions," he said. "The effectiveness of the inspections requires the active cooperation of Iraq and the Iraqi authorities. They can no longer, I believe, shirk their responsibilities. The Iraqi regime must understand that," Chirac said.

"To disarm Iraq the international community chose the path of inspections. For two and a half months, the inspectors have been working in Iraq and they have already achieved a certain number of results. We must continue down this path. "France considers that in between the inspection arrangements as they exist now and war, there are many, many ways to disarm Iraq. We have still not gone to the end - far from it," he said.

On the need for a second Security Council resolution, Chirac said: "We have to respect the rules. UN Resolution 1441 absolutely does not allow a country to take an initiative outside its framework. "If there were to be any initiative - notably war - there would of course have to be first a new deliberation by the Security Council," he said.

Russia said Friday it will oppose a second UN resolution authorizing the use of force against Baghdad should Iraq fail to disarm after President George W. Bush said he would welcome such a measure.

"Today, we see no basis for adopting a UN Security Council resolution that would open the way for the use of force against Iraq," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said. "It is very possible to solve the problem of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq through political means," said Ivanov as he called for UN weapons inspections to continue. "They can still continue at this point."

Ivanov's comment came in response to a tough statement by Bush who said Thursday he was willing to seek a new UN resolution clearly spelling out conditions under which force could be used to compel Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to disarm.

Russia stressed that future action on Iraq should depend on the new report that UN weapons inspectors working in the country are due to present to the UN Security Council on February 14. "Security Council resolutions must be aimed at resolving the Iraq problem not aggravating it," Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov as saying.

The statement by Fedotov, who holds the UN brief in the Russian foreign ministry, implied that Moscow views Bush's support for a new UN vote on Iraq as little more than a call to arms. His comments were supported by Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, with a government spokesman saying that a second resolution was "not necessary for the moment."

Moscow and Washington have in effect altered their positions on a possible second UN vote to follow resolution 1441, which the Security Council approved in November 2002. The Bush administration had until now adamantly insisted that existing UN disarmament resolutions on Iraq gave Washington the authority needed to resort to force if Iraq was found to have violated them.

But Bush dramatically reversed the situation late Thursday, declaring: "The United States would welcome the support of a new resolution which makes clear that the Security Council stands behind its previous demands." "And the US together with a growing coalition of nations is resolved to take whatever action is necessary to defend ourselves and disarm the Iraqi regime," said Bush.

Moscow, for its part, was insisting up until earlier this week that "one or several" UN resolutions might still be needed before force could legitimately be used against Iraq. Iraq is a Soviet-era ally of Moscow and Russia has massive oil investments there that it is fearful of losing to Western powers in case of war.

Moscow now is indicating concern at Washington's motives for seeking a new vote which it fears could pave the way for war. But analysts said Moscow was still likely to soften its stance, going along with Washington and either approving a new UN resolution or abstaining from the vote, since it values President Vladimir Putin's warm relations with Bush.

"The Russian foreign ministry likes to strike a tough pose but it is not up to the foreign ministry to decide this. The decision on how we vote in the Security Council will be made by Putin himself," said independent military affairs analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. "In either case, we will not veto this resolution," Felgenhauer said.

Sergei Kazyonnov, of the Russian Academy of Science's respected Institute of Global Economy and Foreign Relations, agreed. "Russia just does not want to vote on any new resolution at all because it wants to avoid a direct confrontation with the United States," Kazyonnov said.

"But at the same time, Moscow does not want to give up its current, principled position, from which we are getting some gains," he added. Meanwhile Yevgeny Volk of the US-based Heritage Foundation said Moscow is now hoping that US will strike before it is forced to make a hard decision on a UN resolution. "Russia wants to avoid a confrontation, but if there is a second vote I think it will abstain," Volk said.

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