British "dossier on Iraq" contains no new facts about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction

Moscow believes that the British "dossier on Iraq" does not contain "any new telling arguments on Iraq's developing weapons of mass destruction or prohibited military programmes," Alexander Yakovenko, the official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, told the press on Saturday.

According to him, Russian experts persevere with a detailed study of the report that had been submitted from London on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

According to Moscow's first estimates, the given document "is to a great extent based on quite a free interpretation of Iraq's declarations made to the Special Commission on Iraq and at the concluding report of the Commission of 1999, though they have been repeatedly discussed by the UN Security Council." "It's worth pointing to a lack of any specification in the authors' reference to 'an analysis' by British intelligence services," the high-ranking Russian diplomat stressed.

According to the Russian side, only inspectors of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission /UNMOVIC/ mission and the International Atomic Energy Agency /IAEA/ could establish weather Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.

"In this context we actively support the agreement to hold a meeting between representatives of Iraq and the UN in Vienna on September 30th-October 2nd and hope that it will bear fruit as regards an urgent re-establishing of international inspection and monitoring in Iraq," the official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry concluded.