WASHINGTON, Oct 21: The United States on Monday distributed to the permanent members of the UN Security Council a “revised text” of a proposed resolution on Iraq that it said addressed concerns raised by its partners.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the new text — which builds on a very tough initial US-British proposal first circulated earlier this month — contained changes designed to ease mainly French and Russian objections to an automatic authorization of the use of force should Iraq not disarm.
“The revisions take into account the ideas that were raised by our partners during our consultations,” Boucher told reporters. “We made some changes in order to achieve our goals and garner support within the council.”
“We’ve done now is take those discussions and reduce them to a new text, a text that we think results from those discussions,” he said, referring to weeks of intense diplomacy aimed at winning support from France and Russia.
He spoke as representatives from the five permanent, veto-wielding Security Council members — the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia — met at the US mission to the United Nations.
Boucher also signalled that Washington was unlikely to bend much further and wanted the resolution adopted as soon as possible.
“We’re also making clear that it’s time to wrap this up and would like to see this finished,” he said.
Boucher refused to provide any details about the revisions — saying the resolution would not be negotiated in public.
But a senior State Department official said later that Washington had conceded to points on the consequences of Iraqi non-compliance with UN arms inspectors and the actual inspection regime. What has been altered is “some of the language on consequences and how the council could make sure there are actions that ensure compliance,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
“Second of all, we’ve revised some of the language on how the inspections should be conducted and we’ve moved some things around,” the official said.
US officials have alluded to the changes in the “consequences” section of the resolution since late last week, when they finally confirmed they were dropping their demand for the automatic authorization of military force if Iraq does not comply.—AFP