|
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov has promised to investigate alleged arms military equipment sales to Iraq by Russian firms.
Testifying before a House budget subcommittee, Powell said he gave some new evidence of the sales to Ivanov during their telephone conversation earlier in the day.
He said the Russian foreign minister assured him that the new information was "interesting that they would run it to ground."
The Russians "are hard at work on it and I hope that they will find out what we know to be the case and deal with it," Powell said. "They do not want this to be an irritant in our relationship."
The US State Department has alleged that Russian companies sold sensitive military equipment to Iraq in the run-up to the US-led war against Iraq, saying that it had raised the issue with the Russian government a number of times.
However, Russians have denied as rumors that Russian firms had sold military equipment to Iraq, saying an investigation into the claims had yielded no results.
(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2003)
|
