Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 23:59:44 -0500 (EST) From: cd <cw_duff-AT-alcor.concordia.ca> Subject: russia_iraq_2.html Yahoo! News AP Headlines Thursday December 17 7:22 PM ET Yeltsin Condemns Strikes on Iraq By BARRY RENFREW Associated Press Writer MOSCOW (AP) - President Boris Yeltsin denounced the United States and Britain on Thursday for attacking Iraq and demanded an immediate end to the bombing, warning it could shatter hopes of peace in the Middle East. Russia then recalled its ambassador to the United States in protest. ``Russia demands an immediate end to military action, to show common sense and restraint and not to allow further escalation of the conflict which could result in the most dramatic consequences not only for the Iraqi settlement but for the stability of the entire region,'' Yeltsin said in a statement. The U.S. State Department said Ambassador Yuli M. Vorontsov was flying home to Moscow for ``consultations.'' President Clinton was expected to telephone Yeltsin on Friday in another effort to persuade him to back the United States on the attack. Vice President Al Gore called Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov on Thursday with the same appeal. In that conversation, Primakov expressed Russia's indignation at the attacks, the Interfax news agency cited the government press service as saying. Primakov has had close ties with Iraq for many years. The United States and Britain launched air and missile attacks against Iraq in response to Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of U.N. weapons inspectors. The Russian General Staff ordered the navy and air force to put some of its units in ``a state of preparedness'' to await orders that the commander-in-chief might issue because of the attacks, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. It did not elaborate, and there was no sign that Russia was preparing to send troops to the region. While Russia has long opposed military action against Iraq, it has never taken military steps to intervene. Russian officials said the attacks against Iraq could derail approval by parliament of the long-delayed START II nuclear reduction treaty. The treaty, signed in 1993, would halve the Russian and American nuclear arsenals to about 3,000 to 3,500 warheads each. Russia's Communist-led parliament has repeatedly delayed action on the treaty, but there had been increasing hopes in recent months that it would be approved. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, head of the largest faction in the Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, said there was no point in discussing ratification. Instead, he said, Russia should increase its defense budget. Russia has consistently attempted to find a political solution to the dispute with Iraq, an old ally of the Soviet Union. But Moscow is no longer a global superpower and is able to do little more than protest U.S. actions. Many Russians seemed critical of the attacks and sympathetic toward ordinary Iraqis. The U.S. and Britain ``certainly had no right to do that - there are people there, after all,'' said Nadezhda Nenasheva, walking with her child on a Moscow street. Yeltsin discussed the situation in a phone call with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The two leaders agreed that the attack was ``unacceptable, unilateral and contradicting the U.N. charter and the principles of international law,'' the Kremlin press service said. Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev canceled his participation in a session of a joint Russia-NATO council in Brussels, Belgium, because of the bombings and flew back to Moscow on Thursday, news reports said. _________________________________________________________________ Copyright =A9 1998 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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