MOSCOW. Feb 14 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia has information about supporters of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, President Vladimir Putin said at a press conference in the Kremlin on Thursday following negotiations with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
"We know representatives of which countries, citizens of which states fought on the Taliban's side in Afghanistan and who financed them," Putin said. "Iraq is not on that list," he remarked.
However, "that does not mean that the international community has no problems with Iraq," Putin said. Russia and its partners in the UN, including the UN Security Council, "are holding active debates on these problems and seeking their solution," he said.
Russia intends "to continue solving these problems in the future," Putin said.
As for the Russian attitude to the pronouncement of U.S. President George W. Bush about an "axis of evil" and the need to continue the anti-terrorist campaign, Putin said terrorism "is one of the real and global hazards of our epoch." "We regard it as a global international problem, and that is the way to consider it," Putin said.
Canada, the same as Russia, is working together with the United States against terrorism in Afghanistan, Chretien said.
Other nations are a separate question, he said. The threat of the production of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is an issue within UN jurisdiction, he said. Chretien noted that they regarded these matters individually.