Russia, France, Germany Try to Mend Ties With U.S.

The leaders of Russia, France and Germany on Saturday signaled their desire to mend ties with Washington, frayed by the trio’s fierce opposition to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.

Wrapping up their two-day summit, the three key critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy called for strengthening international law and giving the United Nations a central role in Iraq’s reconstruction.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made their point partly by choice of venue: They appeared together to open a seminar on security and international law at this former imperial capital’s leading university.

Chirac told the gathering that the antiwar group has been motivated by concern for how power is organized in the world, not by any desire to see Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s government survive.

“Condemnation of the dictatorship was never the issue,” Chirac said. “France and all other democracies welcome its fall. Our dispute was about how to manage the world and its crises, particularly proliferation crises.... There can be no lasting international order based on the logic of power.”

The legitimacy of new political and economic institutions in Iraq can be ensured only through the United Nations and adherence to international law, Schroeder said.

If the world “had clear-cut and efficient legal mechanisms for resolving crisis situations,” Putin said, “it would be possible to find much more effective solutions to even the most complicated world problems -- and, what’s especially important, do so without acting beyond the law.”

Andrei A. Piontkovsky, director of the Independent Institute for Strategic Studies, a Moscow think tank, said Chirac’s statements were “clearly an attempt to mend fences with the U.S. after the protracted standoff in the international arena.”

“France and Germany are now racing each other trying to be the first one who asks the U.S. for forgiveness for having misbehaved,” he said. “Today, France and Germany are like pigeons who want to snatch a bit of the prey killed by hawks. They want contracts in the post-Hussein Iraq and are ready to work hard to get them.”

Said Ivan Safranchuk, director of the Moscow branch of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information: “The assumption that Russia, Germany and France will not get a share of the pie that they did not bake no longer looks ironclad. Nothing is over yet, and Washington should not think that since it has done all the hard work it will be the only one calling the shots in Iraq.”

Chirac, at the St. Petersburg State University seminar, also stressed an upbeat view of future cooperation with Washington despite current strains over Iraq: “We can rebuild our unity around the values that all great democracies share. This spirit of solidarity and collective responsibility should emerge strengthened from this crisis.”

Viktor A. Kremenyuk, deputy director of the USA-Canada Institute, a Moscow think tank, said the determination of the three leaders to move the Iraq issue back to the United Nations “is an indirect way of insisting on a share of the postwar Iraqi pie.”

The summit also was aimed at showing that these three European powers are united by more than opposition to Bush administration Iraq policy, he added.

They are exploring whether Russia, France and Germany “are just three countries that do not like something about the U.S., or they are something more serious and long-term,” he said. “They needed to understand how strong the bond can be, what can come of their cooperation, and if some sort of alliance is possible.”

But the trio is also ready for compromise -- and so is President Bush, Kremenyuk predicted. “No one wants this fight today, neither the coalition nor Russia, Germany and France,” he said. “They are ready to meet each other halfway.”

Moving beyond the Iraq issue, Putin later used the live broadcast of a Cosmonauts’ Day conversation with Russian and American astronauts on board the orbiting international space station to highlight cooperation with the United States -- even more important in the field of space after the Columbia shuttle disaster.

“This tragedy became our common pain,” Putin told the astronauts.

The grounding of the U.S. shuttle fleet has left Russian space vehicles as the only means to ferry crews and supplies to the station, and Putin noted that the Russian government recently decided to fund more of the needed transport craft.

“I understand the responsibility that lies on Russia’s shoulders in this situation,” he said. “I am convinced that by pooling our efforts, our know-how, expertise and experience, we will be able to take new serious steps for the progress of the entire civilization.”

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.