UNITED NATIONS, Nov 6: The United States presented the UN Security Council with a new draft resolution on Wednesday, seeking a vote on Friday, and giving Iraq a final chance to scrap its weapons of mass destruction or face serious consequences.

The text had been revised after France and Russia objected that an earlier version would give a green light for the automatic use of military force against Iraq.

In an unusual move that underlined the gravity of the situation, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan joined council members for closed-door consultations on the text.

US Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte afterwards told reporters, “It is our intention to put the draft to the vote sometime of Friday.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said “I can’t promise there will be a vote on Friday. We would like to see a vote on Friday. But as we’ve seen in this whole process, not everything happens precisely on our schedule or anybody else’s schedule.”

Both Negroponte and the co-sponsor of the draft, his British counterpart Jeremy Greenstock, said consultations would continue on Thursday.

“We are ready to move to closure,” Greenstock said, but added that Britain and the United States were willing to listen further to the views of their council colleagues.

Annan was accompanied to the council by the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, who has played an increasingly visible role in council deliberations since Iraq announced on Sept 16 that it would allow the inspectors to start work after an absence of almost four years.

Ambassadors from the five permanent members — the United States and its ally Britain, together with critics France, Russia and China — met for about half an hour before the full 15-member council convened.

Any of the five has the power to veto a draft resolution, which needs nine positive votes in order to be adopted.

Senior US government officials had been working for a week on the draft, which contained a small number of significant changes.

As is usually the case, the preamble recalled several earlier resolutions, most of them making demands of Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in Aug 1990.

In a concession to Russia, a paragraph was added recalling Resolution 1382, which speaks of the need for a comprehensive settlement — diplomatic language for lifting UN sanctions if Iraq meets the demands.

Earlier US drafts had contained only sticks and no carrots for Iraqi compliance.

The revised text retained the controversial clause “Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations”.—AFP