An Iraqi Kurdish family walk from a cemetery, in  the primarily Kurdish city of Kirkuk, northern Iraq, Thursday, May 15, 2003. Many Kurds who were  forcibly removed from Kirkuk during Saddam  Hussein's so-called "Arabization" program, have returned. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

UNITED NATIONS - Stepping up the pressure for a vote next week, the United States presented a revised resolution to the U.N. Security Council to immediately lift sanctions against Iraq but indicated it might agree to suspend them instead, as Russia and France want.  "We think we've moved significantly," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, noting that the new U.S. draft makes more than 25 changes to address concerns of council members.  But the revised draft does not significantly change two key concerns of many council members - the limited role of the United Nations in postwar Iraq and the powerful role of the United States and Britain as occupying powers.

The United States handed the nine-page draft to council experts at the start of a meeting Thursday. The experts agreed to meet again on Friday. 

"There are some things that are positive," said Syria's deputy U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad, "but the most sensitive issues are still here." 

The revised draft beefs up the language used to describe what a new U.N. coordinator for Iraq will do - but it does not beef up the U.N.'s role in forming a new Iraqi government. 

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Kursheed Kasuri, whose country currently holds the Security Council presidency, said that greater U.N. involvement in postwar Iraq would make conditions more transparent, reducing criticism of the United States and Britain. 

As for power in Iraq, the new text would still authorize the United States and Britain to run the country for a year, with automatic extensions, and to control a development fund where money from oil sales would be deposited. 

The United States faces resistance from four key countries which opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq - France, Russia, China and Germany. They say they haven't even started to negotiate the text, and all four have expressed concerns about a variety of issues. 

Russia and France have called for sanctions to be suspended - not lifted - because under Security Council resolutions, U.N. weapons inspectors must certify that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated. Since the end of the war the United States has barred U.N. inspectors from returning, deploying its own teams instead. 

The Bush administration would like to lift sanctions immediately, but agreeing to a suspension might be the price it has to pay to get the resolution adopted quickly. 

At a press conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell hinted at a compromise, saying that eliminating the embargoes was preferable "but we will look at the idea of initially suspending sanctions." 

The White House and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations quickly issued "clarifications," stressing that the U.S. position was to lift sanctions. 

During the short flight from Sofia to Berlin, Germany, Powell was back on message. 

"We are going for lifting the sanctions," he told reporters. "We want to get 15-0 in the Security Council. I think a lift is achievable." 

The resolution would lift the embargoes imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and phase out over four months the U.N. oil-for-food humanitarian program designed to help ordinary Iraqis cope with sanctions. 

Council approval would end U.N. control over the country's vast oil wealth and allow the United States and its allies to use the money to pay for the country's reconstruction. 

Several council members had expressed concern about a provision in the original draft banning lawsuits against the country's oil and natural gas. U.S. officials said that was necessary to hold off creditors owed $400 billion by Iraq from claiming oil or tankers as payment. 

The revised draft makes clear that the United States and its allies are not making any decisions about Iraq's debt. The debt issue should be dealt with "through appropriate international mechanisms such as the Paris Club," an organization of creditor countries that negotiates debt deals with debtor nations, it said.