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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Putin maakt Blair belachelijk op persconferentie



lennart
30-04-03, 19:14
We are not with you and we don't believe you

Tony Blair's first public attempt to heal the diplomatic wounds of the Iraq war suffered a humiliating rebuff yesterday when Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, refused to lift UN sanctions and mocked the possibility that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq.

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But Mr Putin said Russia and its partners "believe until clarity is achieved over whether weapons of mass destruction exist in Iraq, sanctions should be kept in place". Almost mocking Mr Blair, he went on: "Where is Saddam? Where are those arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, if indeed they ever existed? Perhaps Saddam is still hiding somewhere in a bunker underground, sitting on cases of weapons of mass destruction and is preparing to blow the whole thing up and bring down the lives of thousands of Iraqi people."

He added that sanctions could not be lifted since they had been introduced because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."It is only the security council that is in a position to lift those sanctions, after all they introduced them."

He also derided Mr Blair's talk of a new world order, saying: "If the decision-making process in such a framework is democratic then that is something we could agree with, but if decisions are being made by just one member of the international community and all the others are required to support them that is something we could not find acceptable."

Mr Putin insisted that the weapons inspectors could return now so that they could be summoned to any site in Iraq to make a "professional conclusion" on whether the weapons existed. The inspectors could be protected by UN or blue-helmeted soldiers along the line of the settlement reached in Afghanistan. He added that Russia was in a position to take immediate steps.

The tone and content of Mr Putin's rebuff will cause deep anxiety inside Downing Street which has been increasingly concerned that, following the war in Iraq, a new bi-polar world order is established with the US on one side and France and Germany on the other.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,946321,00.html