March 16, 2003	Sunday	Muharram 12, 1424

UNITED NATIONS, March 15: “War is just days away,” diplomats said here on Friday as the UN Security Council reached a complete “impasse” as US and Britain could not muster enough support in the Council for approval of a resolution authorizing war against Iraq.

On Friday US rejected last minute efforts by group of six nations — Pakistan, Chile, Cameroon, Guinea, Angola and Mexico — to break the deadlock indicated that UN negotiations were all but over, diplomats said.

The proposal sought a three-week timeline to determine Iraqi compliance with UN demands before approving a resolution authorizing war. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer rejected it as a “non-starter.”

Despite efforts US-British-Spanish sponsored resolution could not get majority of nine votes needed to field a resolution in the 15-member UN Security Council. The White House said on Friday that President Bush would meet on Sunday with Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Jose Maria Aznar in Spain in the Azores to determine if there was still room for diplomacy.

However, most diplomats at the United Nations said that they believed the summit was a countdown to war and the resolution would be withdrawn rather than put to a vote where a humiliating defeat was likely.

The diplomatic talks on Friday were conducted in small groups and among the six undecided members of the council, no session of the full Security Council was planned following a week of frantic activity.

A planned meeting among the five permanent council members with veto power was cancelled, a sign there was not much left to do.