June 30 'too soon for Iraq elections'

UN secretary-general Kofi Annan came out against holding elections in Iraq before the June 30 transfer of power to Iraqis on a day when the number of US soldiers killed reached 545.

Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, said earlier that changes are possible in the formula for establishing a new Iraqi government, but that the date for the coalition to hand over power remains firm.

Mr Annan and his special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, spoke at UN headquarters in New York after a meeting with representatives of 45 nations and the EU where Mr Brahimi gave a briefing on his visit to Iraq.

"We shared with them our sense, and the emerging consensus, or understanding that elections cannot be held before the end of June, that the June 30 date for the handover of sovereignty must be respected, and that we need to find a mechanism to create a caretaker government and then prepare the elections later, sometime later in the future," Mr Annan said.

Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani has called for direct elections before a transfer of power, arguing that a government based on caucuses would be "illegitimate." The US has argued that security concerns and lack of preparations make quick elections impossible.

Meanwhile, an explosion killed two US infantrymen in an area west of Baghdad.

The blast occurred as troops were investigating an earlier attack on a convoy near Khaldiyah, a Sunni Triangle town about 50 miles west of Baghdad, witnesses said. One Iraqi was killed and another US soldier was wounded.

The latest deaths brought to 545 the number of US service members who have died since the Iraq war began on March 20. Most of the deaths occurred after President George W Bush declared an end to active combat on May 1.