UN election experts arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for consultations with Iraqi leaders and the US-led authorities on a strategy for quickly restoring Iraqi sovereignty, the United Nations said.
The UN team will make proposals on the country's political transition to self-rule, which the United States and the Iraqi Governing Council have agreed to achieve by June 30.
"I hope the work of this team will help resolve the impasse over the transitional political process leading to the establishment of a provisional government for Iraq," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement.
The leading Shia cleric in Iraq threw a wrench into the US plan for transferring sovereignty when he insisted on an election, rather than regional caucuses as Washington wants, to choose a national assembly that would pick a provisional government to rule the country from July 1 onward.
Annan has made it clear the UN team would have a relatively free hand in making proposals for the handover, which is complicated by continued violence and political wrangles.
"I firmly believe that the most sustainable way forward is one that comes from the Iraqis themselves," Annan said. "Consensus amongst all Iraqi constituencies is the best guarantee of a legitimate and credible transitional governance arrangement for Iraq."
The team's trip to Baghdad was veiled in secrecy on security grounds. The United Nations said it would not disclose the team had been dispatched until after it was on the ground.
Its arrival coincides with a debate in Washington and Baghdad over whether the return of Iraqi sovereignty should be delayed because conditions on the ground are so inauspicious for choosing a provisional government. Annan said on Friday that the June 30 deadline for a transfer of power could be changed if the parties agreed but US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was adhering to the original plan "right now."
Any delay would carry big risks for US President George W. Bush, increasing the odds Iraq would loom larger in US elections in November and opening the United States to charges it was reneging on promises to soon let go of power.
Political experts say it will be extremely difficult in any case to stick to the date because of demands by influential Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for direct elections before a handover.
Neither UN nor US officials believe elections can be organised in such a short time, given the current security conditions.
Under a US plan, regional caucuses would select the members of the assembly that would then pick a government.
But experts say the plan is too complicated, would give the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council too much power and would fail to win over the Shia, who make up 60 percent of the population.
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