West, Russia Put Rival Resolutions on U.N. Syria Observers

Western nations and Russia on Friday put forward rival U.N. Security Council resolutions on sending ceasefire observers to Syria as they wrangled over conditions for the mission.

The dispute after two days of tough negotiations means no vote is likely until Saturday on any final resolution which would allow an advance party of 30 unarmed military observers to go to Syria next week.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany have registered one text for a vote. It demands "full, unimpeded, and immediate freedom of movement" for the mission.

But it also demands that President Bashar al-Assad "implement visibly" the commitments he made to U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, including the withdrawal of troops and weapons from cities.

The text would force the council to "consider further measures" if Syria does not carry out its commitments.

Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his mission had put forward a much shorter text. Details were not immediately released but diplomats said it did not demand the same level of security guarantees or that Assad pull back troops.

France's U.N. ambassador Gerard Araud said the council will negotiate the western text "paragraph by paragraph and I suspect it will be a long afternoon."

"If there is an agreement on the council we will vote it tonight. If there is not agreement, as you know, we need 24 hours after having put a text in blue which means that your Saturday is lost," Araud told reporters. Putting the text "in blue" is the technical phrase for registering a draft resolution for a vote.

Churkin, whose country is Syria's last major ally, insisted that the Western countries were putting too much detail into the text.

"We had this understanding yesterday that it should be to the point, pragmatic, specific about putting in boots on the ground an advance party of the monitoring team," he told reporters.

"But others put their longer text in blue which we think is too long, which is something we need to work on as we prepare the full-fledged deployment."

The U.N. is planning to send at least 200 monitors to Syria if the tense ceasefire in the country holds.