The United States and Britain were preparing a new version of a UN resolution on Iraq on Monday in hopes of quick support from the Security Council for the June 30 transfer of power in Baghdad.
US ambassador John Negroponte said he wanted a vote Tuesday on the resolution, one of the last major pieces of the puzzle that will give Iraq sovereignty more than a year after the war that brought down Saddam Hussein.
But France on Sunday introduced changes that would require the new interim Iraqi government to give its consent for "sensitive offensive operations" by the US-led forces who will remain in Iraq after the handover.
The United States and Britain have been counting on relations between the troops and the Iraqi government to be governed by an exchange of letters by US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Iraqi Foreign Minister Iyad Allawi.
Those letters were presented to the 15-nation council on Sunday, but French ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said the language should be added to the text of the resolution itself.
"We think that it should be clearly put in the resolution," he said.
Powell has repeatedly ruled out giving Iraq the right of veto over any US military operations, and diplomats said they were waiting to see how much of the French demand would be incorporated in Monday's new version.
UN officials said Secretary General Kofi Annan and his Iraq envoy Lakhdar Brahimi would meet the council later Monday, while the ambassadors of Brazil, Chile and Spain called a rare joint press conference to discuss the measure.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the resolution would be less than ideal.
"Our goals were much more ambitious concerning the transfer of sovereignty, the rapid holding of elections, the duration of the presence of military forces in the country, and the role of the United Nations," he said.
Meanwhile Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov said that there were still outstanding issues to be agreed.
"We hope that as a result our point of view will be taken into account in the final draft of the resolution," he was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
Amid the haggling over the past few weeks, Monday's version of the resolution will be the fourth presented by the United States and Britain.
Diplomats and political officials said that consensus was getting close on the measure, which would endorse the interim government but also give US-led troops wide sway to take action in Iraq.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he expected things to be wrapped up "very shortly."
US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told reporters: "You could expect something in the next couple of days or so."
Annan and UN envoy Brahimi met the council Saturday in a secluded retreat to talk about the resolution, with the deadline for the power handover little more than three weeks away.
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