BRITAIN and the United States won key support at the United Nations yesterday for their plan to take control of Iraq’s oil wealth and to set up an interim authority in the country.

A draft resolution endorsing the role of Britain and the United States as “occupying powers” for at least a year attracted early support from crucial swing voters on the 15-nation Security Council, leaving Russia and France isolated.

The Council is expected to vote on the proposal before June 3, when the present phase of the UN’s Oil-for-Food programme expires. Council diplomats will meet again on Monday and Wednesday.

“So far in the Council there has been a decidedly constructive atmosphere,” Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s Ambassador to the UN, said.

Strengthened by military victory, it was becoming clear yesterday that Britain and the US would not face the concerted opposition that led to the collapse of their efforts to obtain a resolution authorising military action.

In that negotiation, Russia and France enjoyed the support not only of China, Germany and Syria, but also of a centrist bloc on the Security Council dubbed the “Middle Six” — Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan.

However, Chile said yesterday that it was “favourable” to the text, which was put forward by the US, Britain and Spain, and Angola described it as a “good start”. Diplomats said that Bulgaria endorsed the proposal and Mexico found “good elements” in the draft. Cameroon said that it was “a good thing to have a resolution”. Günther Pleuger, Germany’s UN Ambassador, said that members of the Security Council did not want to “fight the fights of the past”.

France and Russia expressed reservations, but without the centrist members the two countries lack the support needed to block the resolution without wielding their vetoes.

Diplomats said that France reiterated its proposal that sanctions should be suspended, rather than lifted entirely. Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, the French Ambassador at the UN, said: “There are positive elements in the draft resolution — in the humanitarian and economic field. There are also some difficulties and questions marks.

“One of the main questions that I have asked is some clarification on the political process that is mentioned in the text. We also think the role of the UN co-ordinator should be enhanced. There is also a question of how the Council will monitor the process.”

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s UN envoy, raised the need under existing resolutions for UN weapons inspectors to certify Iraq as being free of weapons of mass destruction before sanctions are lifted altogether, according to diplomats present. The draft makes no mention of weapon inspectors.

The draft resolution would lift all non-military sanctions on Iraq, wind up Oil-for-Food over four months and transfer Iraqi oil revenues into a new “Iraqi Assistance Fund” at the Iraqi central bank.

Despite British and American insistence that Iraqis will control the oil wealth, the proposal says that the occupying powers will spend money in the fund “in consultation with the Iraqi Interim Authority”. An international advisory board, including representatives of the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, will oversee the fund.

The draft requires “that the Iraqi Assistance Fund should be used to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for the economic reconstruction and repair of Iraq’s infrastructure, for the continued disarmament of Iraq, and for the costs of indigenous civilian administration, and for other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq”.

Ambassadors from Arab countries expressed surprise over the coalition claim to Iraq’s oil money and were to consider their position after meeting privately with John Negroponte, the American Ambassador.

The draft resolution also endorses the presence of coalition troops in Iraq for at least 12 months.

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