IRAQ Deal improves resolution's chances

An addition summarizes Iraq's security partnership with U.S.-led forces.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United States called for a vote on a U.N. resolution endorsing the restoration of Iraq's sovereignty after reaching a last-minute compromise. France said it would vote for the measure, and German support also looked likely.
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said he was "very optimistic" about the outcome of the vote scheduled for late this afternoon. But Chile and other Security Council members were still hoping for more changes in the resolution. And China, while it welcomed the compromise as an improvement, refrained from saying today how it would vote.
Before the vote, Secretary-General Kofi Annan scheduled a meeting of the Group of Friends of Iraq, comprising 47 nations and the European Commission. The secretary-general set up the forum to exchange views and share advice with key interested parties -- including Iraq's neighbors -- and he was expected to press for support for the new interim government.
After weeks of negotiations, the United States and Britain are hoping to send a united message to the Iraqi people that the international community supports the transfer of full sovereignty to the new interim Iraqi government and wants the new leaders to work in partnership with the U.S.-led multinational force that is remaining in the country to help ensure security.
U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who helped put together the interim government, told the Security Council on Monday that the way the relationship between the interim government and the multinational force is managed "will greatly affect the credibility of the interim government in the eyes of their people."
Key compromise
A last-minute addition to the resolution late Monday by the United States and Britain, summarizing Iraq's "security partnership" with U.S.-led forces, was the key compromise that paved the way for the vote. Some council diplomats said they expect unanimous support for the resolution.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said today that France will vote for the resolution. "We find many of our ideas in this text," Barnier said on France-Inter radio.
Barnier said France would have liked a clearer definition of the relationship between the new Iraqi government and multinational force.
"That doesn't stop us from a positive vote in New York to help in a constructive way find a positive exit to this tragedy," he said.
French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Bush met over the weekend at celebrations in Normandy to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
The occasion was seen as a way to find reconciliation between the United States and France, which led opposition to the war in Iraq. The rift that developed threatened trans-Atlantic ties.
France "obtained lots of improvements" in the resolution, Barnier said. "That proves that there was a real dialogue for the first time in this affair."
"The Americans clearly understood, after months and months of military operations, that there was no way out by arms, by military operations in Iraq," the foreign minister said.
"Washington understood that we have to get out of this tragedy by the high road."
Germany's U.N. Ambassador also was optimistic.
"I think we have reached a stage where the resolution has a very good text," Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said Monday. "My feeling is we have found a compromise."
French proposals
France wanted the resolution to state clearly that Iraq's interim government will have authority over its armed forces, that Iraqi forces can refuse to take part in operations by the multinational force, and that the new government could veto "sensitive offensive operations" by the U.S.-led force.
The draft sent to the 15-member Security Council earlier Monday did not include any of these proposals. But the United States and Britain revised the draft to address the relationship between the international force and the government that is to assume power on June 30.
The text now welcomes the exchange of letters between Iraq's new prime minister and Secretary of State Colin Powell and their pledge to work together to reach agreement on "the full range of fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations."
"There is every reason to believe that this work can produce a positive result," Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying Monday by Russia's Interfax news agency.
China's foreign ministry said today it hoped the United States and Britain will "seek the widest consensus" on a final resolution.
"The new draft has many improvements. The Chinese side welcomes it," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said, without revealing which way Beijing would vote.
In an interview aired by British Broadcasting Corp. radio today, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that after the planned June 30 handover to an Iraqi administration, "The ultimate political decision-making rests with the Iraqis."