The US ambassador to the UN said Tuesday that he was confident a sanctions resolution targeting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his cronies would be passed by the Security Council this week.
Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters after closed-door council consultations on the US draft resolution that "absent a veto (from Russia) which we do not anticipate, the votes are there" for passage during a vote expected "as soon as possible, but this week."
A resolution requires nine votes out of 15 and no veto from any of the five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said elements of the US draft were "quite excessive" and noted that G8 leaders meeting in Japan had made no reference to sanctions against the Mugabe regime.
"We do not accept the legitimacy of any government that does not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people," the G8 leaders said in a joint statement issued at their summit on Japan's northern Hokkaido island.
"We will take further steps, inter alia introducing financial and other measures against those individuals responsible for the violence," they added.
A senior Russian official however said earlier Tuesday that Moscow was opposed to new sanctions on Zimbabwe.
"We believe the G8 has provided the support needed for us to move," Khalilzad told reporters.
He added that sanctions were needed to push the Mugabe regime to stop the violence and start substantive negotiations with the opposition led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mugabe, who has been in power 28 years, was re-elected to a sixth term in a one-man run-off poll on June 27 that was widely denounced as a sham and marred by the use of violence.
Tsvangirai, who won the first round of the poll on March 29 but fell short of a majority, pulled out of the contest citing a campaign of violence and intimidation.
