Britain and France temporarily set aside their differences yesterday to support a fresh United Nations Security Council resolution that will provide emergency humanitarian assistance to Iraq.
The diplomats unanimously approved the resolution giving Mr Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, the authority to make necessary adjustments to the oil-for-food programme. The vote will allow Mr Annan to spend billions of dollars of Baghdad's oil revenues on food and humanitarian aid to Iraq - 60 per cent of whose population depend on aid programmes. The oil-for-food aid was suspended when Mr Annan ordered all UN staff out of Iraq as hostilities commenced.
The Anglo-French support for the resolution, which was tabled by Germany, raised hopes that Britain and France might be prepared to bury their differences after their bruising rows over Iraq.
However, Britain struck a note of caution about the prospect of an early deal over the next UN resolution on the far more contentious area of establishing a postwar administration in Iraq.
All sides would like the administration to be set up under the authority of the UN. But the Americans, who have been exasperated by the failure of the UN to endorse its campaign in Iraq, want to limit its role. France and Germany will have nothing to do with a resolution which provides UN cover for an American-led initiative.
Diplomats believe a deal will eventually be reached, not least because France and Russia have commercial interests in Iraq which could be jeopardised if they refuse to endorse a post-war administration.
But Britain has accepted that a deal is unlikely to be reached until after the war, in the same way that Russia refused to endorse the post-war administration in Kosovo in 1999 until the campaign had ended.
The British government was taking heart over its success on placing the oil-for-food programme in the hands of Mr Annan. The Prime Minister's official spokesman trumpeted the resolution, which was voted on just 24 hours after Mr Tony Blair had held emergency talks in New York with Mr Annan.
"What is important here is that there is continuity and that the oil-for-food programme doesn't stall because the regime, which has never taken the programme seriously, is no longer operating it," said the spokesman.
The new arrangement, he said, would herald an end to the days when the oil-for-food programme was abused by the Iraqi regime by, for example, using it to "import thousands of chewing gum machines". Britain was encouraged by the wide support for the resolution and noted that it even won the backing of Syria.