The upper house's speaker is confident that "if a decision to station UN troops in Iraq is taken this move will be positively regarded in that country." He recalled that from the very beginning the coalition troops were regarded in Iraq as occupation ones. For this reason, Sergei Mironov stands for international peacekeeping forces staying in Iraq instead of the coalition troops.
For his part, chairman of the Federation Council's international committee Mikhail Margelov comes out for earliest convocation of an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council. "What is now taking place in Iraq graphically shows that the occupation forces have lost control of the situation. A civil war is really beginning there," Mikhail Margelov said. He believes that after a meeting of the UN Security Council the world community will be in a position to determine concrete methods to influence settlement of the situation in Iraq.
"We avoided the danger relevant some time ago - the danger of Iraq's break-up in several quasi-states, which would have blasted the whole Middle East. But Iraq is now consolidating on the principles of all-out confrontation to the occupation forces," the Senator said.
The chairman of the Federation Council's defense and security committee also stated the necessity of convening an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. "It is necessary to do this so that all the actions in Iraq have an international legal foundation," he stated.
Besides that, he deems it necessary, following Afghanistan's example, to prepare an international conference on Iraq. The Senator said that "all political forces of Iraq, including the opposition ones, must have a chance to voice their point of view at it." In his opinion, after these activities it will be possible to speak of further concrete steps.
