The EU, which took charge of a 400-strong mission in Macedonia from NATO this year, has offered to take over the 12,000 Stabilization Force in Bosnia as its next step into the Balkans.

But a US official said NATO, which Washington dominates, should not yet be talking about pulling out of Bosnia-Hercegovina for a number of reasons.

"We don't think the time is right to begin this discussion," said the official. "It's more complicated (than Macedonia), and there are elements that are more challenging."

One NATO diplomat acknowledged that there was clearly a disagreement, if only between the United States and "a few countries" - led by France, he said - who want to press ahead with the Bosnia mission.

But a senior US official then sought to downplay the spat. "This is not a dispute. To call it a dispute would be overstating it. There is still work to be done by NATO in Bosnia," he said.

NATO chief George Robertson said that the Alliance expected to be discussing the issue in the "very near future."

"The offer by the European Union has been received, and will be considered, and given that we have handed over our mision in Macedonia to the European Union, then it's obviously the kind of business that NATO would expect to be discussing in the very near future," he said.

NATO foreign ministers met in Madrid Tuesday for regular talks, their first since the end of the US-led war against Iraq, which sparked an unprecedented crisis for the Alliance barely three months ago.

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