French Foreign Minister Mr Dominique de Villepin said today that much work remains to be done on a new US draft resolution on Iraq before agreement can be reached.
Earlier British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair called for agreement on a resolution. Mr Blair held talks with Holland's caretaker prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende at Downing Street today on the crisis over Iraq, as well as enlargement of the European Union.
He said afterward: "We discussed Iraq and hope very much that we get a resolution on this issue through the United Nations, but recognising that the issues of weapons of mass destruction is a serious one and has to be dealt with".
A new draft resolution by the United States, backed by Britain, was to be studied by Russia and France at the UN today.
The US has dropped a demand that a resolution should explicitly authorise military force against Iraq.
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United Nations chief arms inspector Hans Blix
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The White House said yesterday that agreement on language acceptable to France and Russia, who strongly opposed an earlier draft authorising an automatic military response if Iraq failed to disarm, was in the offing.
But in Moscow an "informed source" quoted by local agencies described the new text as "disappointing" and "unacceptable," with little to distinguish it from the earlier US draft.
Russia has not as yet given any official reaction to the US proposed resolution, but on yesterday Deputy Foreign Minister Mr Yury Fedotov said Moscow hoped a new US resolution on Iraq "will not contain any unacceptable elements from the old American proposals".
Chief UN weapons inspector Mr Hans Blix is in Moscow today for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Mr Igor Ivanov. Mr Blix will meet Mr Ivanov and other Russian officials as diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iraqi situation intensify, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council meeting to discuss a new revised resolution on Iraq.
Washington bowed to world opinion last week and offered a compromise resolution that does not call for the automatic use of military force against Iraq should Baghdad fail to comply with inspectors.
Mr Blix has said UN weapons inspectors are ready to start work in Iraq within 10 days of a new Security Council resolution.
Agencies