The United Nations will in next few days send a team of experts to assess the feasibility of holding direct elections in Iraq before the transfer of sovereignty at the end of June, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday. 

Annan, quoted by a UN press release, told reporters in Brussels that he had received assurances from the US-British coalition authority for the return of UN staff to Iraq.

"The coalition has promised to do the maximum to protect the team working in Iraq. I think that in a few days the team will be able to travel and start its work," said Annan in Brussels after inaugurating a new UN information center in Europe.

A UN spokesman said in New York that Annan would give the go-ahead after studying reports from UN security assessment teams currently in Iraq.

Speculation has been running rife on when Annan would dispatch the electoral team as requested by the Iraqi Governing Council and the US-led coalition earlier this month.

The Governing Council and the coalition want the world body to help establish whether elections for a transitional national assembly can be held before June 30, and, if not, what alternative arrangement would be acceptable.

Under a deal reached between the Governing Council and the coalition, the transitional legislature, which would be created through regional caucuses, would elect an interim government by the end of June. But the formula has been strongly opposed by Iraqi Shiites, who call for direct elections.

Annan, who ordered pullout of UN international staff from Iraq in October after two deadly bombings of the UN office in Baghdad, has been hesitant at ordering UN staff back to Iraq.
 
(Xinhua News Agency January 31, 2004)