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By Irwin Arieff
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com
May 21, 2003

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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Security Council is expected to approve on Thursday a U.S. draft resolution lifting U.N. sanctions on Iraq after Washington offered fresh concessions overnight aimed at winning the votes of at least 11 of the council's 15 members, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The latest draft, to be unveiled later on Wednesday, marked the third set of revisions since the United States and co-sponsors Britain and Spain first released a text last week.

Diplomats familiar with the latest changes said Washington believed it could win the support of as many as 14 and perhaps all 15 of the council's members.

Among earlier doubters France, Germany, Russia, China and Syria, Germany was "definitely on board" with the rest still undecided, the diplomats said.

"The pressure on them is to vote for this now," said one council diplomat who backs the measure, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte was preparing to formally inform the council that the text would be put to a vote on Thursday morning and that no more changes would be made, envoys said.

Washington had initially hoped to bring the measure to a vote on Wednesday but delayed the move after council members suggested dozens of changes in the 12-page draft during a four-hour closed-door debate late on Tuesday.

The resolution would end nearly 13 years of U.N. sanctions, imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of oil-rich Kuwait, and also phase out strict U.N. controls on the Iraqi economy.

FRENCH STANCE IS KEY

It would give occupying powers the United States and Britain broad authority to run the shattered nation and use its oil revenues for reconstruction until a new Iraqi government was in place.

Despite the unprecedented powers granted to Washington and London, the other Security Council powers -- eager to mend the rifts created by Washington's failed campaign for U.N. approval for its invasion of Iraq -- have refrained from veto threats.

A key question was whether France, which infuriated Washington by leading the charge against U.N. authorization for the war, would vote "Yes" or abstain. Overnight the sponsors agreed to a new compromise to try to win its support.

Paris, concerned at the lack of a deadline for installing a new Iraqi government, wanted the resolution to lapse after a year, at which time the council could renew it.

Washington opposed this but agreed instead to provide for a Security Council review within 12 months, at which time it could take any further steps it deemed necessary, diplomats said.

But the new draft failed to meet a Russian demand that U.N. arms inspectors be let back in to Iraq to certify that all its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons had been destroyed.

Washington has refused to bow to a requirement in previous U.N. resolutions that the inspectors certify that all of Iraq's mass destruction weapons have been eliminated before the sanctions can be ended. The point is a particularly sore one because the United States said it was invading Iraq to disarm it but so far no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found.

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