President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said there will be developments in the Iraq confrontation "within a matter of weeks"

President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said there will be developments in the Iraq confrontation "within a matter of weeks", after meeting with US President George W. Bush. Bush aides and British officials have been working on a measure authorising military force to enforce UN Security Council resolution 1441, which demanded Iraq disarm peacefully and warned of "serious consequences" for non-compliance. The new resolution, which France has vowed to oppose, could be unveiled as early as this week. Despite such resistance, Vike-Freiberga downplayed divisions in Europe, saying the split is over the timeframe of a possible war to strip Baghdad of any chemical, biological or nuclear arms. Latvia, a Baltic former Soviet republic, is among seven ex-communist countries invited to join NATO last November and is also on course to join the European Union in May 2004. Last week, it was one of 10 Central and Eastern European NATO aspirants who lined up behind the US position on Iraq, saying in a joint letter that Baghdad was clearly breaching UN disarmament resolutions.