September 15, 2003	Monday	Rajab 17, 1424

GENEVA: Continued differences among the five members of the United Nations Security Council blocked an accord on Iraq’s political future during a meeting here on Saturday, hosted by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The talks — involving Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — are to continue at the UN headquarters in New York, where the chief negotiators will also take up the Middle East situation, which requires “bolder steps”, says Annan.

The Saturday meeting in Geneva was aimed at identifying the common ground among the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council on the political future of Iraq, which the United States and Britain invaded in March.

The five studied the US proposal to deploy in Iraq a multilateral military force, authorized by the Security Council but under Washington’s command.

Some of the remaining discrepancies are related to the timing of reinstating Iraq’s sovereignty and the hand-over of power to the Iraqi people, acknowledged France’s foreign minister Dominique de Villepin.

In addition to Annan and Villepin, the other participants in the four-hour discussions here were chief diplomats Li Zhaoxing, of China, Colin Powell, of the United States, Jack Straw, of Britain, and Igor Ivanov, of Russia.

Excluded from the meeting were the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council: Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Germany, Guinea, Mexico, Pakistan, Spain and Syria.

Annan justified the reduced meeting, saying, “a unified approach by the permanent members would make it easier for the Security Council as a whole to devise an effective policy” for a country that has been devastated by war and where attacks against the occupying forces are on the rise.

But Powell conceded, “It is also important that we involve the other 10 members of the Security Council and we will instruct our permanent representatives (in New York) to do so.”

“It is always the intent of the United States to listen to others and hear ideas put forth... and that is the way resolutions are developed,” said the US official.

The recent events in Iraq, where there is growing discontent among the population and an average of one death a day among the occupying forces, prompted the five permanent members to seek areas of consensus for the country’s future.

Despite a relatively amicable atmosphere, some tensions remain among the five, dating to the US decision to launch the war against Iraq without the UN’s authorization.

At stake are the timeline for the political transition, the leadership of the military forces and the role of the United Nations.

For now, power in Iraq is in the hands of the troops, US officials and a civilian administration.

The Government Council, made up of Iraqis designated by Washington, and by ministers named in recent weeks, lacks the authority to govern the strife-torn country.

Villepin said in a press conference that the transfer of the government to the Iraqis should take place in a gradual, progressive manner.

But just hours earlier the French official had proposed a schedule in which a constitution would be adopted before the end of the year and elections held in the first half of 2004.

Powell ruled out Villepin’s proposal, calling it “totally unrealistic.”

Relations between Washington and Paris hit a low point earlier this year when France and Germany opposed the US-led plans to invade Iraq.

But today the representatives of the Security Council’s permanent members “are all committed to putting authority back in the hands of the Iraqi people... as fast as is possible, but in a responsible way,” said the US Secretary of State.

The French official declined to comment on whether his country might use its veto when the council votes on resolutions related to the political future of Iraq.

He did say, “we are here in Geneva, to try to find solutions, not to create new problems, and the discussion has thus taken place in a constructive spirit.”

The five permanent members share “the aspiration to transfer power to the Iraqi people as soon as possible,” Annan pointed out.

Representatives of international humanitarian agencies who met this week with the UN secretary-general said that to continue their work in Iraq would require the deployment of sufficient military forces to ensure their protection and a clear political plan for the full transfer of power to the Iraqis.

As for the Israel-Palestine conflict, the five foreign ministers agreed that the two sides have obligations to fulfil under the roadmap peace plan, sponsored by the “Quartet”: UN, European Union, Russia and the United States.

The implementation of the roadmap has been stalled by the recent wave of violence, which put an end to the precarious ceasefire, the first requirement towards dismantling Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, and Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners.

Arab countries are proposing an international peace conference and the deployment of a multilateral force in the zone to ensure compliance with the roadmap’s terms.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.