India will, however, return an ambassador to Baghdad said Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).

The United States has requested that Indian troops deploy as part of the international force, but New Delhi was reportedly weighing its decision because the troops would be under US and British command, not UN command.

"India welcomes the fact that the UN Security Council has reached an agreement on the way forward in Iraq as expressed in UN Security Council resolution 1483," Sibal told reporters after the meeting.

"We know that in the resolution, the UN has appealed to all its members to assist the people of Iraq in their efforts to reform their institutions and rebuild their country and to constitute true conditions of security and stability in Iraq."

India's foreign ministry would discuss with the UN the "scope of the appeal" before the cabinet decides on the kind of help India can give, added Sibal, the top-ranking bureaucrat in the foreign ministry.

New Delhi has consistently argued that all operations in Iraq be under the auspices of the United Nations and not the US-led coalition.

India opposed the war in Iraq and during the conflict the Indian parliament passed a resolution condemning it.

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