Russian Foreign Minister: Situation around Iraq requires political settlement

The situation surrounding Iraq ought to be resolved politically in a strict compliance with UN Security Council's resolutions, the Russian foreign minister was quoted as saying on Friday at the 57th session of the UN General Assembly.

He said that "no matter what kind of international crises or conflicts appear, no matter what challenges or threats they pose, the UN and international law are capable of resolving them." Igor Ivanov also thinks that it was long ago when local problems became one of the main threats to international stability. He added that the world community was still far from reducing drastically either the number of armed conflicts or their scale.

In this connection, the Russian minister said that the world was in for energetic work requiring much time, effort and financial reserves.

"Nonetheless, the most important thing is to have firm political will," Ivanov said laying emphasis on the necessity to practically implement provisions of the UN Charter envisaging that conflicts should be settled peacefully.