The United States, France and Britain circulated a U.N. resolution on Thursday that would unilaterally establish a tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 murder of a former Lebanese premier and 22 others.

The draft resolution, distributed to the U.N. Security Council, asks the 15 members to approve an earlier agreement of draft statutes for the court that the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora signed in November 2006.

Siniora on Monday asked the Security Council to help break the political impasse in Beirut over the creation of the court by adopting a binding resolution.

But he is opposed by Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, who warned on Tuesday that the tribunal's creation could lead to violence in Lebanon, which is undergoing its worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Rafik al-Hariri, a former prime minister, and 22 others were assassinated in a bombing in Beirut on February 14, 2005, the first in a series of killings of anti-Syrian figures. Syria has denied involvement and its Lebanese allies oppose the tribunal in its current form.

France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, said the measure "was aimed at helping the Lebanese find a way out of the current dead end."

He said he hoped the resolution would be adopted by the end of the month. The measure invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which would make the creation of the court mandatory.