War allies to meet tomorrow

The United States will hold an emergency summit with allies Britain and Spain on Sunday in a final diplomatic effort to overcome opposition in the U.N. Security Council to a resolution paving the way for war on Iraq.

President George W. Bush will travel to Portugal's Azores islands to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in a "final pursuit" of a U.N. resolution on disarming Iraq, the White House said.

"In an effort to pursue every last bit of diplomacy the president will depart Sunday morning for the Azores ... to discuss prospects for resolving the situation peacefully with diplomacy in final pursuit of a United Nations resolution," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

As he heads toward a war in which Arab support would be vital, Bush said the United States would unveil a long-delayed Middle East peace plan which envisions a Palestinian state once the Palestinians confirm a new prime minister with "real authority" to act.

"We expect that such a Palestinian prime minister will be confirmed soon. Immediately upon confirmation, the road map for peace will be given to the Palestinians and the Israelis," Bush said in an appearance in the White House Rose Garden with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Bush also took a tough line against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a key objection of the Palestinians and other Arabs. "As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end."

Washington says that it can attack Iraq without clear U.N. backing but Russia, Germany and France all refused to drop opposition on Friday to any rapid military action by some 250,000 U.S. and British troops massed in the Gulf region.

The United States, Britain and Spain have drawn up a resolution that sets Iraq a tough ultimatum to disarm or face invasion. So far only one other of the 15-nation Security Council -- Bulgaria -- has backed the proposal.

Washington accuses Baghdad of hiding weapons of mass destruction and diplomats say Bush might order a strike on Iraq in the coming days, impatient with the stiff opposition at the United Nations. Iraq says it has no such weapons.

French President Jacques Chirac, who has threatened to veto any U.N. resolution sanctioning war, told Blair on Friday that Paris was ready to seek a compromise about disarming Iraq but rejected any ultimatum leading to war.

A spokeswoman for Chirac said France was ready to discuss halting U.N. arms inspections before the end of a 120-day period which Paris has favored until now. Her account of a telephone call to Blair suggested little else new in Chirac's position.

In Baghdad, a top Iraqi preacher called on fellow Muslims to attack U.S. interests worldwide in a holy struggle or jihad to defend Iraq against a U.S. invasion.

"It is the duty of Muslims today, Iraqis and others, to threaten American interests wherever they are, to set them on fire and to sink their ships," Abdul-Razzaq Saadi said in a sermon at the Mother of All Battles mosque.

In a bruising dispute between allies, the United States, Britain and Spain failed on Thursday to persuade the Security Council to agree to their resolution.

Faced with such resistance, the United States said it might abandon efforts to get a U.N. vote altogether. It says last November's resolution 1441 is mandate enough.

But Blair, facing his worst political crisis over Iraq, is anxious for U.N. cover to assuage British public opinion, which is opposed to any military action without U.N. approval.

Washington and London agreed to extend diplomacy over the weekend by dropping a demand for a Council vote on Friday.

"All the options that you can imagine are before us and (we will) be examining them today, tomorrow and into the weekend," Powell said on Thursday.

Moscow, Berlin and Paris maintained on Friday their faith in the work of U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq. "It is still possible to solve this conflict peacefully," Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told the German parliament.

The U.S. navy said it was moving a dozen more missile-firing warships from the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf region, joining more than 60 other U.S. ships arrayed against Iraq. Such a move could bring more cruise missiles to bear on Iraq.

If there were no vote on a new resolution, the legal situation might be governed by Resolution 1441, which threatened "serious consequences" if Iraq did not disarm.

But if a new resolution were voted down, an attack against Iraq would be in violation of international law.

Many world stock markets, depressed by worries about war in Iraq and a grim economic outlook, jumped for a second day on Friday on hopes that any attack would be short. On wall Street, the Dow Jones index jumped by 1 percent as Bush spoke. The FTSE Eurotop 300 index of leading European shares was earlier up 2.7 percent.

Under U.N. rules, a resolution needs nine of 15 votes to pass, with no vetoes. Six nations -- Angola, Chile, Cameroon, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan -- are undecided about the resolution. It is supported by Britain, the United States, Spain and Bulgaria. France, Russia, China, Germany and Syria oppose it.