Baker Flying to Colombia on U.N. Move : Mideast: He then will meet in Los Angeles with the foreign minister of Malaysia, another Security Council member, to press resolution against Iraq.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III flew nearly halfway across the globe Friday, with plans to stop in Los Angeles over the weekend, in his search for votes for a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

Baker left Saudi Arabia in the evening on a 16-hour flight to Colombia. From there he planned to fly to Los Angeles today to meet the foreign minister of Malaysia, which, like Colombia, is a member of the U.N. Security Council.

Even by Baker’s globe-trotting standards, it promised to be a test of endurance and a signal of his determination to push through a resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq by the end of next week, when the United States hands the council chair to Yemen.

Drafting of the exact wording of the resolution was expected to begin in New York as soon as Baker has completed his consultations, and the issue may be brought to a vote Thursday or Friday.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze could confer next week with Baker at the United Nations and with foreign ministers of other Security Council members on a Persian Gulf resolution containing a warning to Iraq.

Yuli M. Vorontsov, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday that Shevardnadze would travel to New York to underscore a warning to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to remove his forces from Kuwait.

The Soviet diplomat said the warning would be contained in a Security Council resolution, but it was uncertain whether it would contain a deadline for withdrawal.

“We want Saddam Hussein to understand we mean business, serious business,” he said. “He must go out. We are not joking about this. We want Iraq to fulfill its obligations to move out of Kuwait.”

In the past week and a half, Baker has met the foreign ministers of most of the United States’ 14 fellow members of the council--Canada, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, Finland, Romania, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Zaire and Yemen. The only ministers Baker will not meet are those of Cuba, which is expected to vote against a military force resolution, and of China, whom he met earlier this month.

Only Yemen appeared to turn down Baker outright. In Sana on Thursday, President Ali Abdullah Saleh told reporters that he opposed the presence and possible use of foreign forces in the region.

Officials from other countries with whom Baker has consulted said he is proposing a two-part resolution. The first part would give Iraq’s Hussein a specified time within which to withdraw from Kuwait. If he failed to do so, a second clause authorizing the use of force would take effect.