Facing opposition from most countries in the world, the Bush administration has offered new compromise proposals that would involve UN Security Council consultations before any attack against Iraq, diplomats said today.
But the envoys said France, which is leading the resistance to the original US draft resolution, has not agreed yet.
"It now all depends on Washington and Paris," said one Security Council diplomat close to the negotiations.
One key difference in the new US proposals, aimed at breaking a month-long deadlock, is sending inspectors back to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction and giving their report more weight, the envoys said. The UN arms experts left Baghdad in December 1998 and have been barred since then.
The United States will soften language on giving itself the right to determine when to launch a military strike by going back to the 15-member Security Council for consultations or a debate after a report by the inspectors.
This could include a second resolution but Washington has not committed itself to waiting for its adoption as France had proposed.
France, Russia, China and most other UN members opposed an earlier US draft that would give Washington the right to attack Iraq for any failure to meet UN requirements.
When the proposal is ready, US diplomats will call a meeting among the other four permanent members of the council - Britain, France, Russia and China. The Bush administration now hopes this will happen on Friday.