Diplomats said the proposal sidesteps the main point of disagreement by postponing a definitive decision on the command structure for the mission, and NATO ambassadors were due to hold another meeting Friday evening at 1700 GMT to reach a deal.

If agreement were to be reached Friday, NATO would be able to send a team of 20 to 30 officers to Iraq next week, and who would report back to the alliance by mid-September.

"I think everybody is looking for a solution ... there are a lot of consultations going on with capitals," said a NATO official.

The official confirmed the main sticking point in the three days of talks here has been the issue of the unity of command, which France is opposing because of its "political significance, but which the United States wants for military reasons.

Diplomatic sources said it was up to Washington whether or not there would be a deal on Friday as France appeared willing to accept the compromise.

The United States says that, for the sake of military efficiency, the training mission should come under the US-led coalition force already in Iraq.

But France, a leading opponent of last year's invasion, is against any move which would allow the coalition to fly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization flag.

In an attempt to broker a solution De Hoop Scheffer had bilateral discussions earlier Friday with several envoys before the 26 NATO ambassadors met for their seventh session in three days on the vexed issue.

NATO agreed in principle at a summit in Istanbul last month to provide training to Iraqi forces after the formal handover of powers to an interim government in Baghdad, but summit leaders left details to be hammered out.

NATO officials say a long drawn-out disagreement could damage NATO's credibility.

In Paris earlier, a foreign ministry source said the question of a link between the training mission and the coalition force could be examined again in September following the report by the group of NATO officers.

"We have reached a real problem: to what degree the training mission will be merged or not into the multi-national force down the road," said a French official: "For France and five or six other countries this is a problem."

The United States, which has long pushed for a bigger NATO role in Iraq where American troops have been struggling to contain mounting violence, is pushing hard for an accord.

A NATO military delegation led by US admiral Gregory Johnson went to Iraq this month to study options for the mission.

Iraq's interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, part of the Iraqi administration which took over in June, has urged NATO to quickly make good on its promise to train security forces.

Zebari said earlier this month Iraqi authorities were "in a race against the clock" in their effort to ensure stability.

Crime has soared in Iraq following the US-led invasion, with convicts released by ex-leader Saddam Hussein fueling insecurity while politically-motivated kidnappings of foreign nationals soar.

Another NATO official denied Wednesday that the differences were in any way comparable to the splits which shook NATO to its foundations in the run-up to last year's US-led war against Iraq.

On that occasion France, Germany and Belgium effectively paralyzed the alliance -- which requires unanimity for all decisions -- by refusing to allow NATO to come to Turkey's aid.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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