PARIS, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- The United Nations, hoping to break a stalemate over how to transfer power in Iraq, agreed Tuesday to send a team to the country.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said his team would go to Iraq to decide if and when elections could be held, CNN News reported.
Key in the process is the ability of the Coalition Provisional Authority to provide adequate security, he said.
The Governing Council and U.S.-led coalition want caucuses to choose a transitional national assembly by the end of May. That assembly would pick a transitional sovereign government, which would take power July 1.
But Shiite critics of the plan, particularly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, want direct elections for the transitional legislature.
Al-Sistani has indicated he would not oppose caucuses if a U.N. team determined that direct elections were not feasible.
