U.N. Council Calls Urgent Session on Use of Force Against Iraq : Blockade: But it fails to break a stalemate on a U.S. proposal to permit military action in the gulf.

The U.N. Security Council called an emergency session Monday night but failed to break a stalemate over a U.S. proposal that would authorize the use of military force against Iraq.

The unexpected convening of the emergency session had suggested that a compromise might be imminent and opened the possibility that some version of the American proposal could win formal approval.

But the closed-door consultations by the 15-member body adjourned without an agreement, leaving the Bush Administration still without U.N. approval for an American naval blockade of Iraq.

Obtaining a Security Council resolution permitting the blockade is of crucial importance to the United States, which has threatened the use of force in the Persian Gulf to maintain a U.N.-approved economic embargo but has so far put off any hostile action.

Sources at the United Nations said Washington wants U.N. support for any action it takes to maintain the economic sanctions against Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. U.S. Navy patrol vessels on Monday continued to tail two defiant Iraqi oil tankers as the ships steamed farther down the Persian Gulf after ignoring warning shots and American orders to halt.

According to sources, much of the urgency in getting the resolution approved had been the fact that the tankers were expected to enter the territorial waters of Yemen today.

U.S. officials feared that an attempt by Iraqi tankers to offload oil at Yemeni ports could spark a confrontation with U.S. vessels enforcing the embargo, diplomatic sources said.

But the Yemeni government assured the U.N. council Monday night that their nation would honor the embargo and prevent the tankers from unloading their cargoes.

The proposal sponsored by the United States would permit individual national forces operating under their own national rules to use “such minimum force as may be necessary to verify the cargoes and destinations of all inward and outward merchant shipping” and to enforce the economic sanctions against Iraq.

Some members of the council have expressed reluctance about granting such authorization.

Ricardo Alarcon, Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations, said he thinks the proposal is “illegal, unfounded and unnecessary.”

“The Security Council, in our view, should not in any circumstances rubber-stamp the actions the U.S. is taking” in the gulf, he told reporters before Monday night’s meeting.

But asked if he would vote against the proposal, he said he didn’t know.

Because each of the five permanent members of the council--the United States, China, France, Britain and the Soviet Union--holds veto power, the sources said, the United States hoped to engineer a compromise that could win approval from most of the nations and at least a vote of abstention from China, regarded as the leading obstacle to the U.S. effort.

Some nations have floated alternative approaches that permit military action only if the United Nations were to authorize a blockade.

The 15-nation Security Council has already approved four resolutions aimed at Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s troops invaded and occupied Kuwait on Aug. 2.

The latest resolution, which passed by a 15-0 vote Saturday, demanded that Iraq permit the immediate departure of the thousands of foreigners trapped in Iraq and Kuwait.

Still, U.N. sources said, the idea of allowing military action to enforce the economic sanctions without putting multinational forces under a U.N. flag is not an easy step for the international body to take.

China, for example, is said to be opposed to any military action that might imperil chances for a peaceful resolution of the gulf crisis.