UNITED NATIONS, May 29. "It's not how we expected it to happen," said a UN spokesman on Friday when the Iraqi Governing Council announced it had chosen Iyad Allawi to lead the interim government taking office on June 30.

Although many UN officials and diplomats felt that US-led Governing Council (IGC) had hijacked the process from UN's special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi who is entrusted to chose the interim government, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said UN 'respects' the choice.

Mr Allawi, a British-educated Shia neurologist, had been high on Mr Brahimi's list. "Mr Brahimi was not present when the choice was made," Mr Eckhard said.

"Mr Brahimi respects the decision and is prepared to work with this person on the selection of the other posts in this interim government," Mr Eckhard told reporters, adding that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also respected the choice,

"I assume this choice will hold, but the process isn't over yet," he said. "Let us wait to see what the Iraqi street has to say about this name."

Mr Eckhard did express his surprise at the announcement when he said it was not how we expected it to happen.

Meanwhile, UN officials here said the names of an interim president and two vice presidents could be announced as early as this weekend.

"They narrowed the list to ones that would have the broadest acceptability across the spectrum of Iraqi society and presented those names to the Governing Council, which then voted," one official said.

"Let there be no misunderstanding," Mr Brahimi's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement. "Mr Brahimi is perfectly comfortable with how the process is proceeding this far."

Mr Brahimi has been in Iraq for the past three weeks consulting with Iraqi factions and the provisional authority on the composition of the new government due to take over when the Governing Council is dissolved at the end of June.

Mr Brahimi would now sit down with Mr Allawi and discuss the other names that had emerged from his consultations, with an eye to choosing candidates for president, vice president and a cabinet, and this process could quickly wrap up over the next few days, UN officials said.

He had been expected to announce the names himself to the UN Security Council in early June and had been consulting with a variety of Iraqi leaders, not just the 25-member Governing Council.

Mr Brahimi was not expected to return to New York from Iraq for another week or 10 days to brief the Security Council on the new government's composition. He had initially expressed hope the new caretaker government would be selected by the end of May.

Agencies add: Leading Iraqi politicians said on Saturday they had all but agreed the composition of a new interim government to take power next month but others cautioned that negotiations were not yet completed.

Senior Council member Ahmad Chalabi said the names of key ministers had been agreed with the United States and a UN envoy but that discussions were continuing on the posts of president and two vice presidents.