WASHINGTON, July 13: President Pervez Musharraf has agreed in principle to assign Pakistan troops to protect the UN mission in Iraq, US and diplomatic sources told Dawn on Tuesday.

But there still were some disagreements that US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage would discuss with Pakistani officials when he arrives in Islamabad on Wednesday, the sources said.

They said that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and US President George W. Bush had both personally asked President Musharraf for the troops. Marie Okabe, a UN spokeswoman in New York, has confirmed that Pakistan had been approached about joining a force the world body intends to raise for Iraq but did not say if it had agreed to do so.

A UN Security Council resolution, adopted last month, calls for a special force, estimated to number 4,000 soldiers, to protect United Nations personnel and facilities in Iraq. Among the countries identified by diplomats as possible participants in the force are Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Nepal and Ukraine.

With the appointment of a senior Pakistani diplomat, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, as the Secretary-General's new representative for Iraq Islamabad now had a direct interest in protecting the UN mission, the sources said.

Ms Okabe said President Musharraf had agreed to release Mr Qazi from his ambassadorial duties in Washington within two weeks. A small UN team is expected to move to Baghdad later this week to set up offices in Baghdad's Green Zone, the main US headquarters. But to be effective the UN team will have to extend its reach across the country, ideally establishing branch offices in key areas.

But to do so, the United Nations needs a force strong enough to provide at least primary protection to its offices and personnel. "We are not speaking of 100 per cent security or guarantee," says Mr Annan.

"We know there are risks, but there are certain limits that we have to impose on ourselves." Mr Qazi's predecessor in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was blown up along with 21 other UN staffers last August when a suicide bomber blew up the UN headquarters in the Iraqi capital.

The most dangerous among these tasks is to work with the interim Iraqi government to ensure that free elections take place in January as promised. UN staffers will be prime targets of old regime loyalists and rebels opposed to the elections.

To achieve these goals, Mr Qazi will need a large UN presence in Iraq. He will initially head a team of just over 20 staff members and would ideally try to expand its staff to 600 that the United Nations had in Iraq until two suicide bombings at UN headquarters in Baghdad last year led to a withdrawal of all non-Iraqi staff.

NO DECISION TAKEN: Hours after the appointment of its top diplomat as Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Iraq, Pakistan on Tuesday said it had not taken a final decision to send its troops to Baghdad, adds dpa.