WASHINGTON, Oct 1: The United States has drawn up a new draft resolution on Iraq and began to share it with other members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, the State Department said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the draft with the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and Spain and would talk to others during the day, spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

He declined to comment on the details of the resolution but said Washington believed it would address the concerns of council members who had been pushing for “more momentum” to be created for Iraq’s return to self-rule.

Mr Boucher also said the document outlined a more definitive role for the United Nations to play in the transition to self-governance by giving specific tasks to UN chief Kofi Annan’s special envoy for Iraq.

And he said the draft, which envisions the creation of a UN-mandated multinational force led by the United States, tied the role of that force to the political process of transition.

“We have incorporated many of the ideas and suggestions that we’ve heard from others,” Mr Boucher said.

“We have tried to respond to the desire to see more of a sense of movement and momentum on the political process, to move more quickly towards a timeline and the implementation of a political process,” he said.

“We’ve made clear that the multinational force is related to a political mission,” Mr Boucher said.

“This whole process is going to be fullfiulled and terminated through a transfer of authority and power to an increasingly responsible Iraqi government that will, after constitutional elections, be able to assume full authority,” he said.

At the same time, Mr Boucher said the resolution would not lay out a definitive timeline for the transition or deadline for the ratification of a new constitution or elections.

Those, he said, would be left up to the Iraqis in consultations with the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and the United Nations.—AFP