RUSSIA: France and Russia have criticised the latest US draft resolution on Iraq as the UN Security Council resumed talks on ensuring Baghdad does not develop weapons of mass destruction.
"The US resolution project . . . so far does not correspond to the criteria [for a settlement of the Iraqi crisis\] which Russia has put forward and by which it stands," Russian Foreign Minister Mr Igor Ivanov said in Moscow.
French Foreign Minister Mr Dominique de Villepin, whose country along with Russia is one of the council's five veto-wielding permanent members, said "progress is still needed and we therefore still have much work to do". Washington meanwhile stepped up pressure on the Security Council, warning that the UN "does not have forever" to approve a new resolution aimed at disarming Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"The United Nations is entering the final stages on this, and we would like to see an agreement reached," said White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell also pressed Mr Ivanov on the need for the Security Council to resolve differences quickly over the proposed new resolution, a State Department official said.
In addition to Mr Ivanov, Mr Powell spoke to British Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw and UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan about the revised text, the official said. France and Russia have been insisting that Washington must seek UN authority to use force only if Iraq is found to be in violation of UN demands to disarm.
In Baghdad, Saddam met with senior military officials to discuss strategy on how to respond to US-led military action to oust his regime, the official INA news agency reported.
Military Industries Minister Mr Abdul Tawab Mulla Howeish, the chief of Iraq's anti-aircraft defences, Gen Mozahem Saab al-Hassan, and other high-ranking defence officials attended the meeting, INA said.
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Mr Tariq Aziz said that the United States was threatening Iraq because of "oil and Israel" not because of any concern over the country's secret weapons program. In an interview published in the New York Times, Aziz accused Washington of treating Iraq and North Korea differently even though it accused them both of pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Chief UN weapons inspector Mr Hans Blix meanwhile said in Moscow that a war with Iraq can be avoided if Iraqi officials convince arms monitors that they have no weapons of mass destruction.
"If the Iraqis help to cooperate to create some confidence that there remain no weapons of mass destruction, there will be no war," Mr Blix said before meeting with the Russian foreign minister.
"There are questions that we would like to be answered by them and places we would like to visit," he said.
"My job was to tell the minister [Mr Ivanov] what's important for us [in the resolution\] in practical terms . . . for the success of the inspections, and one point that is evident is that there is unanimity in the Security Council. And I don't think that they are there yet," Mr Blix said. Mr Blix stressed that his weapons inspections teams would not go to Baghdad until a new resolution on the Iraqi situation had been passed by the Security Council.
Meanwhile, warplanes from a US-British coalition bombed air defence sites in northern Iraq after coming under anti-aircraft artillery fire while patrolling a no-fly zone, the US military said. - (AFP)