PUTRAJAYA, April 22: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri has said Pakistan is considering sending troops to Iraq to protect United Nations staff. "As far as Pakistan is concerned it has received a request from the United States to send troops for the protection of the UN personnel, not for maintaining law and order.

"We are considering that and our government's decision will be based upon what it perceives as what the people of Iraq want," he told AFP in an interview here on Thursday. John Negroponte, the American ambassador to the United Nations recently appointed envoy to Iraq, said last week the United States planned to put an international force in place in Iraq dedicated to protecting UN personnel.

The force would be under the unified command of the US-led coalition and the UN itself would not be involved in maintaining security, said Negroponte. The UN pulled all its international staff out of Iraq in October, several weeks after 22 people were killed in a suicide bombing at the UN's Baghdad offices.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he could not guarantee sending a large team back to Iraq because of the deteriorating security situation. Malaysia's Foreign Minister, Syed Hamid Albar, has also indicated that this Muslim country could consider contributing troops, but appeared to suggest they could go as UN peacekeepers.

He said Wednesday the OIC would call for the UN to play a "pivotal" role after June 30 when the US is due to hand some powers to an Iraqi interim authority. Asked if this would include security, he said: "It has to be. If you talk about the UN playing a central role it has to be the blue berets (peacekeeping forces) of the UN.

"Then many countries will be able to participate and maybe some Islamic countries too." Asked whether Malaysia, which has taken part in previous UN peacekeeping efforts, would be willing to send troops to Iraq, Mr Hamid said: "We'll look at it when the time comes. Once the UN has decided, then the government will look at it."

Israeli plan: The United States should reconsider its decision to support the latest Israeli strategy on the Palestinian territories as it is likely to breed more extremists, Pakistan's foreign minister said on Thursday.

Mr Kasuri told AFP that extremist groups would exploit President Bush's endorsement of a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to keep some Arab land captured in the 1967 war.