Blair confident over Iraq resolution

British Prime Minister Tony Blair touched down in Georgia tonight for the G8 summit of world leaders, confident that United Nations agreement on a new resolution on Iraq was only hours away.

British officials said their hopes were high that negotiations in New York would bear fruit later tonight.

Agreement on a UN Security Council resolution endorsing plans for the handover of sovereignty in Iraq would provide the perfect diplomatic backdrop to the G8 summit, as world leaders began arriving on remote Sea Island, near Savannah, Georgia.

Mr Blair was tonight having talks with his Japanese and Canadian counterparts before a working dinner of heads of government and breakfast talks tomorrow with President George Bush.

The annual gathering of leaders of the largest industrial democracies -- the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia – is also set to focus on the Middle East and Africa.

A host of regional leaders have been invited to special sessions of talks, from South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki to King Abdullah of Jordan.

Measures to help debt relief in Africa and to press social, economic and political reform in the wider Middle East are expected to be agreed at the gathering which ends on Thursday afternoon.

But the focus tonight was on the UN and Iraq, with hopes high of unanimous backing for a new Security Council resolution.

Mr Blair’s official spokesman told reporters travelling with the premier that that would mark a milestone in international relations on Iraq.

“That’s a very important message. The message is the world is united behind an interim Iraqi government,” he said.

“We believe that real progress has been made in New York. We believe there is a consensus.”

Final talks securing the UN deal are believed to have taken place while Mr Bush visited France for the D-Day commemorations, and he had private talks with President Jacques Chirac before heading to Normandy.

American officials said then that Mr Chirac had expressed the view that there could now be unanimity in the UN Security Council.