News, May 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info
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EU anti-war troika
not directed against Washington: Schroeder
(AFP), Khaleej Times, 30 May 2003
MOSCOW - The “peace camp” troika formed by France, Germany and Russia to oppose the US-led war in Iraq is not a new force aiming to counter US power, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in an interview published here on Friday.
“Our cooperation is not
directed against the United States or any other government,” Schroeder
said in an interview with Kommersant daily, published one day before an EU-Russia
summit in Saint Petersburg. “Nor does it represent
cooperation within some sort of new geopolitical bloc,” he said. Russian officials and
media have billed the Saint Petersburg summit as a meeting to reconcile a
Europe divided over the war in Iraq. Russian President
Vladimir Putin will also meet with US President George W. Bush the day
after the EU summit, in the two leaders’ first meeting since the start
of the war that France, Germany and Russia so fiercely opposed. “Despite the fact that
we had differences of opinion over Iraq, Germany and Europe will support
close ties with the United States as a friend and a partner,” Schroeder
said. “Openly discussing
differences is a sign of partnership,” he added. While conciliatory
gestures have been clear between Washington and Moscow, and to some extent
with Paris, ties with Berlin remain visibly strained. “The relationship
between Mr Bush and Mr Schroeder will never again be as it was and as it
should be,” US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said in an
interview with Germany’s Focus magazine last week. US officials have said
Bush will not hold bilateral talks with Schroeder at the Saint Petersburg
summit or at a Group of Eight summit in Evian, France next week.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |