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Trilateral meet will discuss reformation of U.N.

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOCOW SEPT. 23. Iraq, reformation of the United Nations and new global challenges may be discussed at a trilateral meeting of the Foreign Ministers of India, Russia and China, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly which opened in New York on Tuesday.

"There is need to compare notes on Iraq and other burning international problems," Russia's First Deputy Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, said. "It is very important for Russia, India and China to take part in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq."

Delhi, Moscow and Beijing took a similar stand in opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq and are now jointly advocating a decisive role for the U.N. in the political and economic rehabilitation of the country.

"We will also discuss possible ways of reforming the U.N. and the future of the Security Council," Mr. Trubnikov told the Indian media in Moscow.

All the three countries stand for the primacy of the U.N. in resolving international crises as a counterbalance to growing unilateralism.

The Foreign Ministers of India, Russia and China will meet during the U.N. General Assembly for the second year running.

Later this year, scholars of the three countries will meet in Delhi for the third `track II' interaction. While rejecting any idea of a Moscow-Delhi-Beijing axis, Russian officials see ample scope for cooperation among the three nuclear powers with a combined population of 2.5 billion.

"There is a very long list of problems we can jointly discuss and tackle," Mr. Trubnikov said. While noting that many of these problems had global reach, he stressed a regional dimension to the trilateral cooperation, above all in the economic sphere.

"India and China both need new energy sources to sustain their development, and Russia has vast oil and gas resources."

India has committed $1.7 billion to develop Russia's Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, while China has signed a deal to pump up to 30 million tonnes of oil from Siberia.

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