UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday gave the United States a major boost in Iraq by backing Washington in saying elections before the June 30 hand-over of power are impossible.
After meeting his trusted adviser Lakhdar Brahimi and some 40 UN member countries, he told reporters the hand-over date should be maintained and that he was looking at how to create a government in Baghdad until elections are held.
"We shared with them our sense of the emerging consensus or understanding that elections cannot be held before the end of June, that the June 30 date for hand-over of sovereignty must be respected, and that we need to find a mechanism to create a caretaker government and then help prepare the elections for later, sometime later in the future," Annan said.
The announcement is a boon for the administration of US President George W. Bush, which was faced with stiff opposition to the current hand-over plan from Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Sistani got thousands onto the streets to call for immediate elections before the hand-over but said he would change his mind if the United Nations agreed early polls were not feasible.
As expected, Annan did not release further details about the plans but is expected to do so after further consultations with Brahimi in Tokyo, where both men will be on separate visits this weekend.
"We hope that as we move forward, we'll be able to work with the Iraqis and the coalition to find a mechanism for establishing a caretaker or interim government until such time as elections are organised."
Brahimi, widely praised for his two-year role in guiding post-war Afghanistan to a new constitution adopted last month, could recommend a similar process in Iraq, said one UN diplomat who asked not to be named.
That would likely include expanding the current 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, which was appointed by the US-led coalition, the diplomat said.
"Ayatollah Sistani and I had a very, very good discussion and I think he, like everybody else, realises that the United Nations has no agenda except to help them," Brahimi said upon arriving here for Thursday's meetings.
"If we can tell them something, it is because we strongly believe it is in the interests of Iraq."
Annan and Brahimi met the so-called Group of Friends of Iraq, consisting of 46 delegations at the United Nations, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the European Union and Iraq's neighbours.
"We welcome very much that there is this group of friends who are going to be closely associated with our work and supporting the re-engagement of the United Nations in Iraq," Brahimi said.
Annan pulled UN international staff out of Baghdad in October following two deadly attacks at the world body's headquarters in the Iraqi capital that killed more than 20 people, including the senior UN envoy in the country.
But the United States appealed to Annan for help in the face of Sistani's opposition to the original hand-over plan, which would have seen power handed over to an unelected body that would replace the current Governing Council.
In his remarks to the Group of Friends, Annan insisted on the importance of polls to help guarantee stability in the country.
"A consensus has emerged that direct national elections are the best way to establish a parliament and a government that are fully representative and legitimate," he said, according to a copy of his remarks obtained by AFP.
"At the same time, there is wide agreement that elections cannot be successfully achieved unless carefully prepared under optimal technical, security and political conditions."