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The Times (UK)
November 8, 2001
Putin's Saddam visit angers Blair and Bush
BY RICHARD BEESTON, DIPLOMATIC EDITOR
RUSSIA is planning to help Iraq to break out of its international isolation after moves were announced yesterday for President Putin to make an unprecedented visit to Baghdad as part of a tour of the Middle East.
In a move likely to cause consternation in Washington and London, Mr Putin is expected to become the first prominent foreign leader to meet President Saddam Hussein since the Gulf War a decade ago.
“He (Mr Putin) will visit Iraq as part of his next Middle East tour,” Aleksandr Ivanov, the Russian Ambassador to Jordan, told the newspaper al-Arab al-Yom. “He has the intention — we do not know when.”
The proposed trip coincides with other evidence that the Kremlin is deliberately strengthening its ties with Baghdad. Dozens of Russian companies are vying for contracts at the Baghdad trade fair this week, while at the United Nations in New York Russian diplomats are resisting fresh efforts to tighten sanctions against the Iraqi regime.
The issue is likely to be one of the thornier questions raised when Mr Putin meets President Bush next week for three days in Texas.
Washington has been delighted by Moscow’s co-operation in the war against terror. The Kremlin has allowed US warplanes to fly over its territory, helped in the deployment of American forces in former Soviet Central Asian republics and intensified its military support for the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
The Russians have also signalled that they are prepared to be flexible over United States plans to build a missile defence system. However, Moscow has made clear that it will not allow its new alliance with America to jeopardise its relations with Iraq, particularly its vital trade links. Baghdad owes Moscow about £5 billion in debts that predate the Gulf War. In the long term, Moscow is hoping to win a big slice of any future deals if and when sanctions are eventually lifted against Iraq, which has the second-largest oil reserves in the Middle East.
“The Russians have been very co-operative, but they have a lot at stake in Iraq,” a Foreign Office official said. “They do not want to see that relationship damaged.”
Russia, in common with many of America’s other allies in the Middle East and Europe, has become increasingly concerned about threats being made against Baghdad by some Washington officials.
Members of the Bush Administration have made clear that they would like to broaden the war on terrorism to include Iraq. The threats were made after evidence emerged that Iraqi Intelligence may have helped those responsible for the September 11 attacks. There are also suspicions that Iraq may be behind the anthrax attacks in America.
The extent of Russia’s defence of Iraq is likely to emerge most clearly at the UN General Assembly meeting at the weekend. Britain and America had been hoping to use the occasion to review the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq, which expires at the end of this month.
The Foreign Office would like to resurrect its plans to tighten the sanctions against Saddam, but the British effort, which was blocked by the Russians at the UN Security Council in July, could once again come to nothing. The Russians seem determined to resist the new policy and would prefer to do away with the embargo.
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