Air Strikes Raise Tensions Over Iraq

Russia has condemned recent US and British air strikes in Iraq's air exclusion zones, saying they hinder efforts to resolve the weapons inspections crisis.

"Bombing raids... create obstacles in the search for a political-diplomatic settlement," the Russian Foreign Ministry said as talks were under way in Vienna between Iraq and the UN on resuming inspections.

Iraq said on Sunday that US aircraft had attacked the international civilian airport at Basra in southern Iraq for the second time in a week.

A senior US official has robustly defended the air strikes, rejecting the Russian criticism as "completely invalid".

"We have a right to fly those missions, Iraq has a duty to allow those missions to go on," said Undersecretary for Defence Douglas Feith on a visit to Rome.

"Iraq has no right to be firing at the aircraft that are performing those missions."

Diplomatic rebuff

Russia's criticism comes as the US and Britain continue an intensive diplomatic drive to win Security Council support for a tough new resolution which would rewrite many of the ground rules for inspections.

We do not want to give carte blanche to military action, because we want to fully assume our responsibilities

A draft of the resolution, which was leaked at the weekend, gives Iraq seven days to agree unconditionally to its terms and 30 days to declare details of its weapons programmes, or else face military action.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Monday that the most important task remained "the quickest possible return of international inspectors to Iraq".

France has also rebuffed the diplomats' advances, with Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin saying his country did not want to give "carte blanche" to military action.

"We cannot accept a resolution authorising, as of now, the recourse to force without [the issue] coming back to the UN Security Council," he said in an interview to be published on Tuesday.

A UK envoy held talks in Beijing on Monday, as he tried to overcome China's scepticism about the resolution. China has up until now backed France's position.

'Businesslike talks'

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mark Gwozdecky, told the BBC that the talks in Vienna had so far been "businesslike and thorough".

The United Nations is negotiating with Iraqi officials on sending inspectors back in for the first time in four years.

The head of the inspections team, Hans Blix, is aiming to get Iraq's agreement on logistical arrangements for the inspections.

The Vienna talks represent the first real test of Iraq's commitment to co-operation with the UN since it agreed to the inspectors' unconditional return.

Mr Blix said he expected his teams to have unlimited access to sites in Iraq.

Visits to the large presidential palaces could prove a sticking-point, but on this issue Mr Blix said he would refer back to an agreement struck by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan four years ago, which laid out the provisions for visits to the palaces.

"We would like to ensure that if and when inspections come about, we will not have any clashes inside [Iraq]. We would rather have these things outside, in advance," Mr Blix said.

Inspectors from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Committee (Unmovic) will search for biological, chemical and ballistic weapons.

Mr Blix wants an advance party in Iraq by 15 October, but the draft resolution which Washington and London are expected to put forward could derail that.