Facing almost certain defeat, the US and Britain delayed a vote on a resolution to give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to disarm and signaled they might compromise to try to win support from Security Council members who oppose a rush to war.
The George W. Bush administration had talked of a vote as early as yesterday, but with France and Russia threatening to veto the current draft resolution, and without the minimum nine "yes" votes, it held up action in the council.
Instead, council members agreed to hold another open meeting on the Iraq crisis yesterday and today at the request of the Non-Aligned Movement, which represents about 115 mainly developing countries. Diplomats said it would likely delay a vote until tomorrow at the earliest.
US President George W. Bush conducted an urgent phone campaign aimed at seeking support from world leaders for a March 17 deadline on Iraq.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin (
Both the US and Britain said they were willing to negotiate both the deadline and other changes to the resolution.
"We are busting a gut to see if we can get greater consensus in the council," said Britain's UN Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock. "We are examining whether a list of tests of Iraqi compliance would be a useful thing for the council. It doesn't mean there are any conclusions."
Several council nations complained that the March 17 deadline was too short for Iraq to demonstrate that it is disarming.
During a closed-door council meeting late Monday, diplomats said Greenstock suggested a two-phase approach to the draft resolution. Under the proposal, Saddam would have 10 days to prove that Iraq has taken a "strategic decision" to disarm, which could be done with a series of tests or "benchmarks," council diplomats said.
If Iraq makes that decision, a second phase would begin with more time to verify Iraq's full disarmament, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
France and Russia announced Monday they would oppose the US-backed resolution.
"No matter what the circumstances, France will vote `no,'" French President Jacques Chirac said in a televised interview in France. "There is no cause for war to achieve the objective that we fixed -- the disarmament of Iraq."
In Moscow, Russia's foreign minister Igor Ivanov said: "Russia will vote against this resolution."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a news conference in The Hague on Monday that, without UN backing, any war to disarm Iraq would lack legitimacy.
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