LAUSR

We consider knotted annuli in 4–space, called 2–string-links, which are knotted surfaces in codi-mension two that are naturally related, via closure operations, to both 2–links and 2–torus links. We classify 2–string-links up to link-homotopy by means of a 4–dimensional version of Milnor invariants. The key to our proof is that any 2–string link is link-homotopic to a ribbon one; this allows to use the homotopy classification obtained in the ribbon case by P. Bellingeri and the authors. Along the way, we give a Roseman-type result for immersed surfaces in 4–space. We also discuss the case of ribbon k–string links, for k ≥ 3.