BRITAIN’S plan to seek United Nations authorisation for military action against Baghdad ran into serious opposition from its European allies yesterday, with France threatening to exercise its veto as long as weapons inspectors were still working in Iraq.

During a Security Council summit meeting, France and Germany spoke strongly against an attack on Iraq as Britain and the United States struggled to muster support for the use of force. Russia and China also expressed strong reservations.

France, a permament member of the Security Council, and Germany, which will chair the council from next month, appeared to be moving closer to a common policy that would thwart Britain’s desire for a second UN resolution authorising a war.

Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, issued a warning across the horseshoe-shaped table to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State. “In addition to disastrous consequences for long-term regional stability, we also fear possible negative repercussions for the joint fight against . . . murderous terrorism,” he said. “These are fundamental reasons for our rejection of military action.”

The meeting was Germany’s first opportunity publicly to state its policy on Iraq at the UN since joining the Security Council this month. Germany has been lobbying Paris to take a similar stand, arguing that a Franco-German position is vital for the future of a European foreign policy.

Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, appeared to harden his country’s position by describ- ing military action as a “dead end”, arguing that the return of UN inspectors to Iraq meant that Baghdad’s weapons programmes were “largely blocked or even frozen”.

“Since we can disarm Iraq through peaceful means, we should not take the risk to endanger the lives of innocent civilians or soldiers, to jeopardise the stability of the region and to widen the gap between our peoples and our cultures,” he said. “We should not take the risk to fuel terrorism.”

M de Villepin hinted that France might use its veto power to block a second resolution authorising force so long as the inspectors were still in Iraq. “France is a permanent member of the Security Council. It will shoulder all of its responsibilities faithful to all the principles it has,” he said. On the question of military intervention and legitimacy, our feeling is it’s very simple: As long as . . . you can make progress with the inspectors and co-operation, there is no point in choosing the worst possible solution — military intervention.”

General Powell tried to play down the Security Council’s deep divisions. He said that there would be many conversations about the way ahead once UN inspectors report to the council on Iraq’s co-operation next Monday. But he continued: “We cannot fail to take the action that may be necessary because we are afraid of what others might do. We cannot be shocked into impotence because we are afraid of the difficult choices . . . ahead of us.”

Mr Straw insisted that Iraq had to be disarmed before its weapons of mass destruction fell into the hands of “psychopathic” terrorists. “Let us be clear that time is running out for Saddam Hussein, that this game of hide and seek that he’s playing has got to stop and there has got to be complete, active, positive compliance by Iraq,” he said.

Earlier yesterday Iraqi officials in Baghdad promised greater co-operation with UN weapons inspectors.

In a ten-point agreement issued after two days of talks with Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, they pledged to make Iraqi scientists available for private interviews and to expand the list of prospective interviewees.

London and Washington reacted sceptically. Tony Blair’s official spokesman said that Downing Street would not be “rushing to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s conversion to openness . . . It will come as no surprise if we say that we will judge Iraq by its actions rather than its words given the history of deceit and obstruction that has characterised Iraq’s relationship with the weapons inspectors.”

Ari Fleischer, the White House Spokesman, said: “We are only interested in action after 11 or 12 years of watching Saddam give his word and not keeping it.”

Mr Straw welcomed a suggestion by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, that the Iraqi President could avoid war by fleeing Iraq. “Although . . . unpalatable to see any immunity being offered to the Saddam Hussein regime . . . if the alternative is a war I think most people would swallow hard and accept that it was in his words a fair trade,” he told BBC radio.

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