August 24, 2003	Sunday	Jumadi-us-Sani 25

MOSCOW, Aug 23: A senior Moscow official suggested on Saturday that Russia was willing to show flexibility over a new international stabilisation force in Iraq, news agency Itar-Tass reported.

Moscow is “willing to look into various possibilities to change the defining features and the status of international troops in Iraq”, Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov told the agency.

Fedotov was commenting on the call by the United States for a new UN resolution to increase foreign participation in US-led stabilisation efforts in Iraq.

However, he stressed that no specific draft plan had yet been put forward to the UN Security Council.

On Tuesday a suicide bombing destroyed the United Nations compound in Baghdad, killing 23 people including UN mission chief Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Since then the US government has been mooting a draft Security Council resolution to extend the mandate of the US-led force in a bid to encourage more countries to send troops to Iraq.

Washington may however have to trade an extended mandate for a degree of power-sharing in the troubled country. —AFP