Britain and the United States are pushing the entire Security Council to warn Iraq of the "severest consequences" if it breaks its deal with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, according to a draft resolution obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
The draft, crafted by Britain in close consultation with the Americans, also stresses that any procedures relating to access to presidential sites must conform to past Security Council resolutions.Security Council members still may be working on the draft. The three other permanent council members, Russia, France and China, have said they wouldn't accept any resolution threatening force for Iraqi noncompliance.
"I think we're now talking about getting the draft right and in the form that everybody can subscribe to," Britain's ambassador, John Weston, said Thursday. "And I hope that that will happen fairly quickly."
Any of the five can veto council resolutions.
The draft doesn't specifically threaten military force.
It requests that Richard Butler, the executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission that oversees weapons inspections, report to the council to finish setting the inspection procedures relating to eight disputed presidential sites as soon as possible.
The resolution was drafted to back an accord Annan signed over the weekend in Baghdad. The agreement pledges to open all suspected weapons sites in Iraq - including the eight presidential sites, previously declared off-limits - to U.N. inspectors.
The inspectors must certify that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction before the Security Council will lift sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
As Security Council members mulled over the draft Thursday, Iraq's parliament held a special session to discuss Annan's accord.
The three-hour session was held behind closed doors and was addressed by Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who outlined the deal to the 250-member parliament, legislators said.
He did not speak with reporters after the session.
Also Thursday, U.N. officials were expected to officially announce Annan's choice to lead the team of diplomats being created to accompany U.N. weapons inspectors into the disputed presidential palaces.
U.N. officials confirmed Wednesday that the U.N. top disarmament official, Jayantha Dhanapala, had been chosen to lead the team that was a key part of the agreement Annan reached that has so far averted U.S.-led military strikes on Iraq.
Dhanapala, 59, was appointed the U.N. undersecretary-general for disarmament affairs just last month. Prior to that, he was the diplomat-in-residence at the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.
He also served as Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States from January 1995 until April 1997.
He had been considered a top candidate to replace Boutros Boutros-Ghali as U.N. secretary-general in 1996 - a position that eventually went to Annan.
On Wednesday, the five permanent council members met informally for over 90 minutes to consider the draft.
"We just had an extremely good and reassuring discussion," said Weston, adding that consultations would continue Thursday.
Formal council approval of Annan's accord isn't legally required. But a resolution would give the agreement political clout.