fair use...

Link

Russia Suggests Holding Nations Responsible for Failure to Fight Terror on Their Soil

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Calling for close global cooperation on terrorism, Russia's foreign minister said Friday that the United Nations should consider adopting an international law that would hold nations responsible failing to fight terrorists on their own soil.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called terrorism the primary threat to the world, and urged "a radically new approach to international affairs."

Suggesting that Cold War alliances and post-Cold War agendas must be relegated to the past, he said: "The time of deliberations and disputes as to what the future world architecture should be or what role should be played in it by this or that state has passed irrevocably."

"For the sake of future generations, we simply must close the ranks of the international community and set about taking concrete action," Ivanov told the U.N. General Assembly.

Russia believes the United Nations should study the possibility of an international law dictating "a principle of responsibility of states for the failure to take measures against terrorists in their territory or under their jurisdiction," he said. He provided no details.

Russia calls the separatist rebels it is fighting in Chechnya "terrorists," and President Vladimir Putin's cooperation with the U.S.-led anti-terror efforts have toned down international criticism of the Kremlin's war there.

Speaking a day after the end of Putin's three-day summit with President Bush, Ivanov said it was "natural" that their talks focused on terrorism, but he stressed the "principle importance" of a strong U.N. role in leading the campaign against terrorism.

"The U.N. has the necessary universal character, authority, experience and resources to organize a collective rebuke to terrorism on a firm basis of international law," he said, suggesting nations must join to fight terror under the U.N. aegis or be sidelined in a U.S.-led campaign.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001