Russia challenges US over bid for UN support

THE United States faced yet another challenge yesterday, this time from Russia, over its bid to get the United Nations behind a plan to disarm Iraq.

Washington has met a wall of opposition for threatening to attack Iraq with or without UN support and for seeking a "regime change" in Baghdad. It says Iraq has amassed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and threatens world security, a charge Baghdad denies.

Hoping to break a month-long deadlock, the US on Monday gave its four veto-wielding Security Council colleagues a draft resolution which was due to be discussed yesterday.

Washington's latest effort to reach consensus was met with criticism from two critical allies Russia and Turkey.

Interfax news agency said the new draft had caused "serious disappointment" in Russia because it was "little different from earlier Anglo-American proposals which were unacceptable to Russia and other permanent Security Council members".

Turkey, which has allowed the US use of an air base to patrol "no-fly zones" in Iraq and is seen as a key player in any US-led attack on Baghdad, criticised Washington for sending conflicting messages.

"On one hand they (the Bush administration) are continuously giving an impression of a military action. On the other hand they are saying, 'An intervention may not happen, we have not yet made a decision'," said Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

The new US proposal substituted a warning of "serious consequences" for the automatic use of force if Baghdad impeded weapons inspections, according to excerpts.

It also established a timetable for Saddam Hussein to agree to comply with the resolution and list the weapons that Iraq possesses. And it requests a report from arms experts before any military strike, possibly pushing back any US military action against Iraq.

The reports of Russian unhappiness at Washington's latest move to secure an elusive Security Council agreement, came as UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was in Moscow to meet senior Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, and discuss the new resolution.

Blix said, "I think that if the Iraqis help and cooperate to create confidence that there remain no weapons of mass destruction, then I think there will be no war."