MOSCOW, May 14: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that Washington had yet to agree with Moscow on draft proposals to end UN sanctions against Iraq. “With respect to Iraq, there are some outstanding issues and we will be working these issues in a spirit of partnership and trying to come to a solution,” Mr Powell told reporters.

“We will be working closely in the days ahead to see if we can come to agreement with our other Security Council partners in passing a resolution that we will use to help the people of Iraq live a better life.”

Mr Powell added the two sides had not solved disagreements over the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq.

But Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia did not intend to hamper a US-drafted resolution mapping out who controls Iraq.

“The main thing now is to create a legal basis for broad international involvement in post-war rehabilitation of the country,” Mr Ivanov said.

“This is our objective. We do not seek to somehow complicate the resolution or to create artificial barriers standing in the way of agreeing a common resolution.” —Reuters