UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday gave the United States a major boost in Iraq by backing Washington in saying elections before the June 30 handover of power are impossible.

After meeting his trusted adviser Lakhdar Brahimi and some 40 UN member countries, he told reporters the handover date should be maintained and that he was looking at how to create a government in Baghdad until elections are held.

"We shared with them our sense of the emerging consensus or understanding that elections cannot be held before the end of June, that the June 30 date for handover of sovereignty must be respected, and that we need to find a mechanism to create a caretaker government and then help prepare the elections for later, sometime later in the future," Annan said.

The announcement is a boon for the administration of US President Bush, which was faced with stiff opposition to the current handover plan from Iraq's leading Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Al-Sistani got thousands onto the streets to call for immediate elections before the handover but said he would change his mind if the UN agreed early polls were not feasible.

As expected, Annan did not release further details about the plans but is expected to do so after further consultations with Brahimi in Tokyo, where both men will be on separate visits this weekend.

"We hope that as we move forward, we'll be able to work with the Iraqis and the coalition to find a mechanism for establishing a caretaker or interim government until such time as elections are organised."

Brahimi, widely praised for his two-year role in guiding post-war Afghanistan to a new constitution adopted last month, could recommend a similar process in Iraq, said one UN diplomat who asked not to be named. That would likely include expanding the Governing Council. -AFP