- (AFP) -- Berlin and Moscow want the reconstruction of
post-war Iraq to be under UN auspices, Russian President Vladimir Putin
said during talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
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- "Moscow and Berlin believe the main task is to urgently
return the Iraqi settlement process to within the framework of the United
Nations," the Russian leader said during a bilateral meeting in Russia's
second city.
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- "The war (in Iraq) has been going on for more than
three weeks. Its results are clear and only provoke regret," Putin
added, in his first public comment since the fall of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's regime on Wednesday, when US forces swept into Baghdad.
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- "Our countries must do everything to preserve the
stability of the system of international law, which is based on the supremacy
of the United Nations," Putin said.
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- Putin was to host a trilateral summit later with Schroeder
and French President Jacques Chirac aiming to carve out a role for their
countries in Iraq through the United Nations, in the face of sweeping US
battlefield gains.
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- Putin, Chirac and Schroeder have sought a central role
for the United Nations in post-war Iraq, a position that has been treated
with open skepticism in Washington, which wants initial US military control.
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