UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday he hoped to report this week on a plan to transfer power from US-led occupation authorities to Iraqis.
UN officials have said elections, as preferred by Iraqi Shiite leaders, are not possible by the June 30 handover date and that a US-proposed system of selecting an assembly by caucuses was also not feasible.
UN officials also do not believe it wise to push back the June 30 date, set by Washington, as it struggles to contain attacks by anti-US groups. And they say the hope is that elections for a permanent government could be held at the end of this year or early in 2005.
Annan therefore has to recommend other options for a transfer of power before June, which could range from expanding the current Iraqi Governing Council to forming a new body, such as delegates to a conference on devising fundamental laws.
Asked when he would be able to complete the report, Annan said: "I will be able to do that before I travel," a reference to a trip to Japan on Friday.
"I hope we will be able to help break the impasse and steer things in the right direction," Annan said.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Bush administration was open to recommendations from the UN but was sticking to the July 1 deadline.
"We still believe that June 30 [is the] appropriate time to have a transition to an interim government of the people of Iraq," Powell said.
"We've got an open mind on it," he said, referring to Annan's report.
Powell also said no one believed elections were possible by June but said polls could be held at the end of this year or sometime next year.
Annan's special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, spent a week in Iraq studying the possibility of holding elections or coming up with an alternative.
He was expected to return to New York late yesterday having visited Kuwait and Abu Dhabi to consult regional leaders.
Brahimi has already said that organizing elections by June 30 would pose major difficulties in the current security climate.
He said the demand for a quick election was legitimate but that holding a credible poll was also important.
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