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 press ahead with a presidential run-off election on Friday since conditions for a free and fair election did not exist.

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 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," the statement said.

The statement, watered down from a much tougher previous version, was backed by all 15 council members including South Africa, China and Russia, all of which had been long opposed to any council discussion of Zimbabwe.

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 added that 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.

However, diplomats said that because of resistance from South Africa, China and Russia, 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.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau, editing by Patrick Worsnip)