U.N. council "regrets" Zimbabwe's run-off election

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council said it deeply regretted Zimbabwe's decision to hold a run-off election on Friday since conditions for a fair poll were absent, a statement some diplomats said was far too weak.

The council "agreed that the conditions for a free and fair election did not exist and it was a matter of deep regret that elections went ahead in these circumstances," said a statement read out to reporters by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the council's current president.

"Members of the council agreed they would come back to the issue in the coming days," said the statement, a watered down version of an earlier draft.

The statement was backed by all 15 council members, including three countries that had long opposed any council discussion of Zimbabwe: South Africa, China and Russia.

Western diplomats said the statement was disappointing because it did not say the results would be illegitimate.

Defying international pressure to call off or delay the vote, President Robert Mugabe went ahead despite the withdrawal of opposition contender Morgan Tsvangirai, who accused Mugabe's supporters of violence and intimidation.

Khalilzad said the United States was already talking with other council members about the possibility of imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe.

"We have already started discussions with some colleagues on a resolution that would impose appropriately focused sanctions on the regime, assuming conditions continue as they have during the last period," Khalilzad said.

But diplomats said that resistance from South Africa, China and Russia meant any sanctions were unlikely to be imposed by the council. Rather they would be imposed by the United States, the European Union and other Western governments.

SANCTIONS CONSIDERED

Khalilzad said there was "a variety of options" for sanctions. Diplomats said those options included travel bans and asset freezes for key members of Mugabe's government.

French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert agreed that the council should take action if Mugabe does not change his position on the election.

"If not, France, in liaison with its partners of the European Union, is ready to envisage extra measures in the Security Council, so that Mr Mugabe comes back to reason," he told the council, according to a transcript of his remarks.

Several Western diplomats said the council statement was weaker than Monday's unprecedented condemnation in which the council declared the "campaign of violence" and restrictions on the opposition made a free and fair election in Zimbabwe impossible.

An earlier version of Friday's statement, which several council diplomats told Reuters had been drafted by Britain, said the results of the first-round election on March 29, which Tsvangirai won narrowly, "must be respected" -- in essence declaring the opposition leader Zimbabwe's true president.

It also warned that the council would return to the issue in a few days "to consider appropriate action," meaning sanctions. These points were removed from the final version in order to get the backing of Pretoria, Moscow and Beijing.

Council diplomats said South Africa had urged the council to issue no statement at all. Rather, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo wanted to wait until after next week's African Union summit, which will take up the issue of Zimbabwe.

Before the meeting, Kumalo made it clear that he felt the council members were interfering in Zimbabwe's business.

"Since when do we certify elections?" he asked reporters. "Some of these guys couldn't find Zimbabwe on the map."

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau, editing by Eric Beech)