UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17: The United States, facing widespread opposition to its hardline on Iraq, has put new proposals allowing for United Nations consultations before military force is used, diplomats said on Thursday.

Diplomats at the United Nations said the United States had put proposals to France for a compromise resolution to permit the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq.

Two diplomats separately said the compromise was designed to meet French concerns that there should be no approval for military force unless weapons inspectors reported to the council that Iraq had violated its resolutions.

As more UN member states came out against giving the United States a green light to attack Iraq during a UN Security Council debate, one diplomat said: “Nothing will happen here until things are sorted out between Paris and Washington, and there is now a real possibility of that.”

In Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also said he expected the United States and Britain to propose a new draft resolution.

Ivanov told reporters he had received a telephone call from US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

“Powell informed me that in the next day or two, the United States and Britain will present their new ideas for a draft UN resolution on Iraq which will take into account the point of view of Russia,” Ivanov said.

Russia and France have led Security Council opposition to US demands for a single resolution that would set out a threat of force if Iraq does not comply with weapons inspections.

“The compromise would tie us into a Security Council-bound process which would start with a report from the inspectors of violations,” one UN diplomat said.

The diplomats said the US proposal did not explicitly say that two council resolutions would be needed as suggested by France: one to give the inspectors a tough new mandate, the second to authorize force in the event of Iraqi violations.

But, one said, “the compromise is definitely in favour of a multilateral approach.”

Two senior State Department officials and two other US officials declined to confirm that Powell had told Ivanov that Washington would soon present a proposal.

One official confirmed that Powell had spoken with Ivanov but said talks are still going on. “We are still working this and we are not going to negotiate this in public,” the official said.

Inside the Security Council, a debate on Iraq went into a second day. One of the most forceful speakers was the Swiss ambassador, Jeno Staehelin, who said the argument for preventive force made by US President George Bush ran counter to the UN Charter.

Staehelin said “the policy of the (Iraqi) government in recent years gives rise to serious suspicions” that it was producing weapons of mass destruction.

But these fears could be allayed only by UN weapons inspectors, he said, adding that Switzerland “favours a two-stage approach which would permit the council” to take any decision on force after hearing from inspectors.

The council meeting was called at the request of the non-aligned nations movement, in order to allow countries without seats on the council to express their views.

Almost all of the 29 speakers on Wednesday called for restraint, including Iran and Kuwait.

The tone of the debate was similar in Thursday.

Malaysia’s ambassador to the UN, Hasmy Agam, said there was no need for a new resolution to strengthen the inspectors’ hand, as advocated by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

“The issue before the Security Council should not be one of authorizing the use of force against Iraq but of allowing UNMOVIC (the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) to start work,” Agam said.

He rejected the idea of regime change in Iraq, advanced by the Bush administration, saying it was “illegal and against the UN Charter”.—AFP