Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who has refused to rule out using France's veto in the Security Council to brake what Paris sees as a US rush to war, told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in an interview that Paris opposed having a new resolution as long as arms inspections were continuing.

Speaking after his defence at the UN on Friday of the continuation of efforts to disarm Iraq through inspections under November's Resolution 1441, he added: "This resolution sets no deadline. As long as the inspectors on the ground can show us new progress, there are no grounds for changing course."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said earlier the United Nations might need a new resolution on Iraq and warned Baghdad not to try to take advantage of differences among Security Council members.

Noting European Union leaders are to hold an emergency meeting in Brussels today, he said the 15-nation bloc, which is deeply divided over Iraq, must overcome its differences.

"Let's ensure that Europe is able to assert its identity and its principles," Villepin said.

Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said on Saturday that the weapons inspectors in Iraq should be given the time they need so that the eventual goal of avoiding a war could be reached.

"We believe that efficient inspections will lead Iraq to cooperate fully," said Fischer while addressing a German-Czech discussion forum in Munich.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, addressing a UN Security Council meeting on Iraq, said inspections in Iraq have made progress and the UN inspectors should be given more time to do their job.

Yesterday, UN weapons inspectors examined Iraq's Al Samoud missiles which were declared in a key UN report last week to have violated the world body's resolutions by exceeding the permitted range.

The inspectors pushed ahead with a hunt for banned weapons, visiting at least 10 sites across Iraq following the report to the UN Security Council on Friday by top weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei.

In Cairo, foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League began emergency talks on the Iraq crisis and a forthcoming Arab summit yesterday.

Egypt's semi-official al-Ahram daily said yesterday it had learned that the summit would be held on February 27 in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

(China Daily February 17, 2003)