Blair suffers double rebuff as peace-maker

Tony Blair's attempts to heal the wounds left by the Iraq war suffered a double setback yesterday. Russia delivered an embarrassing snub to him and four European states pressed ahead with plans for military operations outside Nato.

After four hours of talks near Moscow, the Prime Minister failed to persuade Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, to back moves by the United States and Britain for the early lifting of sanctions against Iraq.

Mr Blair was taken aback when, at a joint news conference, Mr Putin ridiculed the US and Britain for failing to find weapons of mass destruction – or Saddam Hussein. Russia would not support lifting sanctions until there was "evidence" that the weapons existed, Mr Putin said. He demanded a key role for the UN in post-war Iraq, including the return of its weapons inspectors.

Mr Blair had travelled to Moscow to rebuild relations, hoping to find Russia's anger over the Iraq war had softened. Instead, Russia seems intent on sticking with the anti-war camp, including France and Germany, in the fraught talks over Iraq's future.

British officials admitted that Mr Putin's outburst had surprised them, insisting that the two leaders still enjoyed good relations. They suspect the Russian President was playing to his domestic audience ahead of elections next year, and trying to use his UN veto as a bargaining chip to secure the repayment of debts owed by Saddam's regime and to win reconstruction contracts.

A grim-faced Mr Blair said: "I don't think there is any point in trying to gloss over the differences there have been." Renewing his attack on France, he warned that there was "a real danger for our world" if it broke into "different poles of power, acting as rivals". The Prime Minister's repeated criticism of France has further soured ties between London and Paris, which is furious at Mr Blair's suggestion that it wants to break the transatlantic alliance.

Britain expressed its irritation that four countries which opposed the war – France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg –have agreed to create a planning and command centre for pan-European military operations outside Nato.

At a brief mini-summit in Brussels called by Belgium, they agreed to create the command "nucleus" in Tervuren, near Brussels, next year and invite other European countries to join. They also agreed on a seven-point plan for an EU defence and security policy – including higher military spending – which they said would work to strengthen, not undermine, the Nato alliance.

Jacques Chirac, the French President, insisted the aim was to build a stronger "partnership" between Europe and the US, based on more equal military capability and contributions but also on a clearer and more unified European voice within the alliance.

The timing of the meeting embarrassed France and Germany, which are trying to repair the rifts created over Iraq. The last thing Paris, in particular, wants now is to seem to be conspiring against Washington.