March 12, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 8, 1424

UNITED NATIONS, March 11: The UN Security Council’s six undecided nations on the Iraq issue have proposed a 45-day deadline for Baghdad to demonstrate that it is fully meeting its disarmament obligations, Cameroon’s UN ambassador said on Tuesday.

That would extend by more than a month an ultimatum of March 17 proposed earlier by the United States, Britain and Spain. But British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said he did not support an extension beyond the end of the month.

“We have proposed 45 days, but this is open to negotiation,” Cameroon’s Martin Belinga-Eboutou told Reuters.

He said the six swing votes — Pakistan, Angola, Chile, Guinea and Mexico in addition to Cameroon — had presented their ideas to Greenstock and were waiting for a reply. The six also proposed adding to the resolution a series of “benchmarks,” or specific disarmament demands for Iraq to meet to show it was complying with previous Security Council resolutions.—Reuters