US Offers New Iraq Proposal

The United States says it has circulated a new draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council demanding that Iraq disarm.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the revised text took into account other countries' concerns but he said that the resolution still made clear to Iraq that force would be used if it failed to comply with UN arms inspectors.

An earlier proposal ran into difficulties after Russia, France and China objected to American and British demands that a new text include an explicit authorisation for the use of force.

As the debate continued, the American Under-Secretary of State for arms control, John Bolton, met Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Moscow for talks on the Iraq crisis.

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is scheduled to visit Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Mr Ivanov.

Losing patience

Mr Boucher refused to reveal details of the draft resolution.

He said the United States was "making it clear that it's time to wrap this up and would like to see this finished".

He signalled that America was unlikely to compromise any further to meet the concerns of the other security council members.

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Washington says there is no word yet on the response of France, which has been holding out against the American proposals.

On Sunday, French President Jacques Chirac said he would never support military action against Iraq unless UN weapons inspectors had first been given the opportunity to resume their work.

In another development, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr Mohamed al-Baradei, told the BBC he was confident Iraq would agree to allow inspectors to visit any site they choose when they return to Baghdad.

"I think the understanding that Iraq now has is that we will not leave any stones unturned," he said.

He said successful weapons inspections relied on:

Immediate and unfettered access for inspectors

Accurate information on which sites to visit

The unanimous support of the UN Security Council.

US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to discuss the Iraq situation when they meet on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic summit in Mexico later this week.