America's chief diplomat is due in Maastricht, the Netherlands, on Tuesday for a ministerial meeting of the 55-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Powell will then touch down in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco before returning to Europe where he will participate in a ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organsiation (NATO) in Brussels on Thursday.

The US diplomat will meet with Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov in Maastricht where the two are expected to discuss Georgia's political transition after former president Eduard Shevardnadze stepped down.

Washington, which has voiced support for Georgia's interim government, is hoping the international community will support a Georgian presidential ballot scheduled for January 4.

The "OSCE is a very important organisation and I think we will have some issues, serious issues, to discuss with respect to what's happened in Georgia recently and what we might do to help the new leadership in Georgia get ready for new elections," Powell said in an interview with European newspapers this week.

Powell's African stops will be dominated by discussions on international terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and regional economics and politics.

The US State Department underlined this week that cooperation from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in the fight against global terror has been "excellent" and that Washington is eager to reinforce such links.

"We've tried to work with all the countries in the (north African) region to do what we can to support their efforts against terrorism, through training, through law enforcement, through information exchange," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Washington would also like to open north Africa's economies and boost democracy efforts in the region, an objective reaffirmed recently by US President George W. Bush.

The ongoing strife in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will also be firmly on the agenda and assistant secretary of state for the Middle East William Burns will join Powell on the African leg of his trip.

Iraq, and US plans for a speedier transition to Iraqi self-rule, will be the main topic of discussion when Powell joins the NATO summit, prior to returning to Washington.

Powell admits the United States and Europe had "one heck of a row over Iraq earlier this year," but he said "we must now come together and help build the peace."

NATO's engagement in Afghanistan is also likely to be hotly debated in Brussels.

The secretary of state conceded that Washington has a serious image problem with its global war on terror, but he hopes this can be turned around in coming months.

"Public sentiment is more negatively inclined toward the United States than I would like to see it ... But I also believe that that is something that can be turned around," Powell added.

Some 3,000 to 5,000 demonstrators are expected to march Sunday in Maastricht to protest Washington's policies.

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