Security Cl to Hold Informal Talks On USResolution

Iraq: UN Security Council to hold informal talks tomorrow on new resolution

United Nations Security Council members will hold informal talks tomorrow on the thrust of a new United States resolution on Iraq, the Council President for September, United Kingdom Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said today.

“The intention, as I understand it, of the US is to share with colleagues, at 15, the thoughts behind that text and to get some reaction to it and that those reactions will then inform the nature of the text which would then later be formally tabled,” Mr. Jones Parry told reporters, referring to the 15-member body, which had just been briefed on the latest report on UN weapons inspections in Iraq.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday received from United States Ambassador John Negroponte the draft ideas on Iraq, the first time he had seen the elements for a possible resolution, his spokesman said today.

Published reports have said the US resolution would create a multinational force for Iraq led by the United States and authorized by the UN - an effort to win greater participation from countries unwilling to serve without UN authorization.

In an interview with the Financial Times on a possible new UN role stemming from the new resolution, Mr. Annan said: "Whatever mandate is given to us has to be clear, precise, achievable. The mandate we had (in the early resolution on Iraq in May) was rather ambiguous. We got a lot done, but moving forward we need a clear resolution, which we've had in similar situations, for example, in the case of Afghanistan, [where] you had a clear division of labour."

Mr. Jones Parry told a news briefing yesterday the new resolution should emerge within days and its starting point would be the need to achieve the political, security and economic conditions necessary to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people as soon as possible.

In the weapons report, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) said it would be able and ready to resume its search for banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at short notice if the Security Council so requested.

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