PARIS, March 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - French President Jacques Chirac said Monday, March 10, that France will veto a new UN resolution on Iraq "whatever the circumstances".

"France will vote no" to the draft resolution submitted by the United States, Britain and Spain, he said in a live television interview, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"France will vote no, but there is a particularity: it's what we call 'the right of veto'," Chirac said.

"It occurs when one of the five Security Council members votes no - even if there is a majority - and then the resolution is not adopted and that's what we call the right of veto," he explained.  

A no-vote by any of the five permanent members of the Security Council automatically means a veto is applied, thus blocking any draft resolution.

Earlier Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov made it crystal clear that Russia would veto the new U.S.-backed resolution on Iraq, as German Government Spokesman Bela Anda said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will attend a U.N. Security Council meeting if there is a vote on the draft resolution.

"Chancellor Schroeder plans to travel to New York for any vote of the U.N. Security Council on a new Iraq resolution," AFP quoted Anda as saying.

Anda said Schroeder was ready to participate but that it would "depend, in the end, on the way the situation develops" and on "the negotiations that have to take place."

"Of course it also depends on others being ready to support the initiative of the French president," he said.

Anda also said Russian President Vladimir Putin has not decided whether he will travel to New York to attend the U.N. session or not.

"Putin has indicated to Gerhard Schroeder that the Russian administration still has to think about it," the spokesman said.

Speaking at the same press conference Monday, a German foreign ministry spokesman said that a clear majority of members of the Council want the weapons inspectors in Iraq to continue their work.

"From the discussions so far at the Security Council there is a clear majority in favor of the U.N. disarmament inspections continuing," said the spokesman.

In a telephone conversation, Schroeder told French President Jacques Chirac on Sunday, March 9, that he agreed with the French initiative that heads of state and government should vote on any draft U.N. resolution on Iraq.

The proposal for leaders to take part in any vote was one of several put to the U.N. Security Council on Friday, March 7, in a speech by French Foreign Minister Dominque de Villepin.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has already rejected the proposal and a White House spokesman said Friday that it was unlikely that U.S. President George W. Bush would take part.

Germany opposes military action and joined the Council as a non-veto holding member in January 2003. Of the five permanent members, France, Russia and China are also opposed to war.

The U.S. resolution would pass with nine votes, as long as no permanent Council members use its veto.

France Begins High-Stakes Diplomacy

Ivanov made it crystal clear that Russia would veto the new U.S.-backed resolution on Iraq

In another development, France began a high-stakes diplomatic push in Africa on Monday to save Paris from using its first U.N. Security Council veto against the United States in 50 years over a war in Iraq.

De Villepin began a lightning tour of Council members Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea to drum up opposition to war and avoid having to use a veto that Washington has warned could seriously harm relations.

"War is always avoidable," de Villepin said after talks with his Angolan counterpart Joao Bernardo de Miranda, who flatly contradicted him at a joint press conference following their meeting.

“What the international community needs to do now is prepare for what comes after the war," de Miranda told reporters. "War is inevitable."

But de Villepin again insisted that there remained alternatives to a war and that U.N. weapons inspections were making progress in getting Saddam to disarm.

"We find it paradoxical and contradictory to resort to force while we're making progress on disarmament," he said at the press conference. "We believe this conflict must be avoided."

If France is able to bring the three African nations into the fold, they would join China, Germany, Russia and Syria to form a blocking minority on the 15-member Council when the resolution is put to the vote.

That would ensure France is not obliged to cast a veto against the United States on the Council, something it has not done since the Suez crisis of 1956.

Some French analysts suggest France wants to avoid the veto because it would not stop the United States from going to war in any case, but would result in marginalizing the Council, the only forum where the two nations are equals.

French President Jacques Chirac will appear on national television Monday evening to explain his position on the Iraqi crisis, TF1 and France 2 television channels said.