The UK government is for the first time talking openly about backing a new United Nations security council resolution on Iraq with the aim of giving India, Pakistan, Turkey and other states the domestic political cover they need to contribute to a multinational force.
Oh dear, someone’s getting wobbly.
As the US and UK look at ways of sharing the military burden of post-war Iraq, a top government officials has said preliminary negotiations over such a resolution could begin at the UN within a few weeks.
In an interview with the Financial Times, John Sawers, the Foreign Office’s political director, said : "We are exploring among ourselves - and we are exploring with the Americans - what the pros and cons [of a new UN resolution] might be."
Mr Sawers, who has just finished three months duty as the UK’s special representative in Iraq, acknowledged that governments in India, Pakistan and Turkey would find it much easier to send troops to Iraq if they could tell their electorates that there was explicit UN authority to do so.
However, he indicated that London and Washington were waiting to see what kind of demands France and Russia - two of the permanent five security council members - might make about boosting the UN role in Iraq. "We are all conscious of idiocies tensions in the UN security council," Mr Sawers said. "They have not gone away. But before we go down the road of seeking a new UN resolution, we would want to be confident it was achievable in a way that would support the coalition’s present efforts."
There are concerns in London and Washington that France will insist on the UN having a far bigger role in Iraq than even the UN secretariat wants.
I’m sure M. DeVillepin (who is still allegedly considered a man) will have a lot to say. |