The US took a big step yesterday towards bringing its United Nations resolution on Iraq to a vote.
The US ambassador to the UN, Mr John Negroponte, officially tabled the text he had distributed to all 15 members of the Security Council on Wednesday, thereby ensuring that it would be the first voted on in the event of multiple texts.
The move makes increasingly certain that the US will put its resolution to a vote and call the bluff of France and Russia, which have competing proposals.
Diplomats say they no longer expected either Paris or Moscow to veto the US resolution, despite the two countries' lingering opposition to language that they describe as a "hidden trigger".
Opponents of the US resolution, which are also said to include China, Mexico, Syria, Guinea and Cameroon, fear the US could use the threat of military force in the resolution as a means to justify going to war against Iraq before Baghdad is given one last serious chance to comply with UN weapons inspectors.
The US has yet to secure the nine votes it needs to pass the resolution. So far the only votes it can be certain of, diplomats say, are the UK, a co-sponsor of the resolution, Singapore, Norway, Bulgaria, Colombia and possibly Mauritius.
Nevertheless, Washington in the past five weeks has made several concessions to French demands for a two-step process, setting out a framework by which the Security Council would consider what to do in case Iraq did not comply with its demands. Paris wants more clarification of the text, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said, while noting that progress was nonetheless being made in the Security Council. "We feel the need for certain things to be clarified," he said. "There is still work to do in New York, and we need to do that before we can truly agree on a resolution."
Iraq, in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, yesterday attempted to sway the opinion of the Security Council against the US draft.
Mr Naji Sabri, Iraq's Foreign Minister, wrote: "The adoption of any resolution that is incompatible with the understandings and agreements reached between Iraq and the secretary-general and between Iraq and Unmovic/IAEA would mean that the Security Council does not honour its undertakings and that it rewrites them in response to pressures from a single party that wants the Security Council to be an instrument of its bellicose foreign policy."
Mr Annan yesterday appeared more optimistic than most other Security Council observers, predicting that the 15-member group would reach a consensus: "It's democracy in practice; it takes a bit of time, but with patience, we'll get an optimal decision," he said.
That decision, which most believe will at best include an abstention from China and Russia and an opposing vote by Syria, is expected to come in the middle of next week. The council is to meet on Monday for a briefing by chief UN arms inspector Mr Hans Blix.
- (Financial Times Service, AFP)