Global Policy Forum

By Irwin Arieff

Security Council major powers neared agreement on Tuesday on a U.S.-drafted resolution that would welcome Baghdad's new Governing Council and formally authorize the United Nations assistance mission in Iraq, diplomats said. "I think we are very close to agreement. Some of the language is still under discussion, but everyone wants to have a resolution," said one council diplomat, predicting a vote would take place this week.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Secretary of State Colin Powell have both called for quick action."We are working on a resolution that I hope to put before the Security Council in the next couple of days," Powell told Egypt's Nile Television on Tuesday.

Washington hoped the text would endorse the Governing Council "as the beginning of a government of Iraq that will ultimately assume full sovereignty and full responsibility for the people of Iraq," he said. The council's five permanent members -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France -- have been informally debating the precise wording of a draft text put forward by Washington last Friday.

Their ambassadors met face-to-face behind closed doors on Tuesday for the first time, to try to work out their differences, and planned to meet again on Wednesday. Once an agreement is reached among the five, the draft would be circulated to all 15 council members, in preparation for a vote, diplomats said.

Debate has focused on the language to be used to endorse the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, an interim administrative body with 25 members drawn from across Iraq's political, ethnic and religious groups. The council has the power to appoint interim diplomats abroad, adopt policies and approve budgets, but Iraq's U.S. administrator Paul Bremer can veto its decisions.

U.N. member-nations are wary of appearing to give the Governing Council the status of a permanent government. So the resolution is likely to welcome its creation only as an initial step toward a definitive government, diplomats said.

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