Russia's plan for deal with Iraq may send message to U.S.

MOSCOW -- Russia insisted Monday that its proposed 10-year trade agreement with Iraq had been in the works for years and should not cause alarm, but a leading political analyst said the deal's timing was designed to send a strong message to the United States.

"Maybe it is intelligent, certainly it is cunning," Georgy Mirsky, chief political analyst at the Institute for World Economics and International Relations, told Echo of Moscow radio.

He said the announcement -- coming just as Washington is rallying support for a possible invasion of Iraq -- appeared designed to make it clear to President Bush that Russia is prepared to flex its muscles.

"Why is it (announced) now? Why not earlier?" Mirsky asked. "It is connected."

Russia in talks

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday that it was in talks with Iraq about a 10-year trade agreement, which envisions new cooperation in oil, irrigation, agriculture, transportation, railroads and electrical energy. Iraq's ambassador to Russia, Abbas Khalaf, said it was a $40 billion agreement, but Moscow refused to confirm that figure.

In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday the United States and Russia had worked "shoulder-to-shoulder with the United Nations" to revise sanctions against Iraq, allowing for broader trade in goods that are not deemed to help Saddam Hussein develop the military or weapons of mass destruction.

"We fully expect that Russia will live up to its obligations in the United Nations and in the international community," Fleischer said.

Increasing stakes

Russia has spoken forcefully against any unilateral U.S. action in Iraq, but Russia's Kommersant newspaper said the proposed Russia-Iraq deal would increase the stakes, particularly if dozens of Russian specialists headed to Iraq to work on economic projects.

"It is sufficient to say that bombing citizens of a country which is one of the members of the global anti-terror coalition would be for Washington not so simple," the newspaper said.

Russian officials played down the deal Monday, saying it had been "publicly announced" more than a year ago.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov said that it "absolutely does not contradict" the U.N. sanctions against Iraq. The U.N. sanctions, imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons have been destroyed along with the long-range missiles to deliver them.

"Russia as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council strictly adheres to its assumed international obligations," Malakhov said. "In full measure, this applies, naturally, to Iraq too."

Russian officials did not say when a possible agreement would be signed.