With the handover of power to the Iraqi people from the US-led coalition looming in less than three weeks, top diplomats from 57 Islamic countries will meet for three days in Istanbul to debate Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and the status of Turkish northern Cyprus.

"Iraq is a full member of the OIC. The principal question this conference will examine will be development and progress in Iraq," interim Iraqi foreign minister Hoshar Zebari told AFP.

One of the OIC's priorities was to assist the Iraqis so they could democratically decide their own future and have full control over their natural resources, a delegate who requested anonymity said.

The meeting was to reaffirm these priorities and call for a "quick return to sovereignty and self-determination for the Iraqi people," he added.

Representatives from Iraq and neighbors Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey will hold a meeting on the sidelines, at the suggestion of host Turkey.

Delegates were also to tackle the conflict in the Middle East with OIC members reviewing a 200-page dossier titled "Palestine, Jerusalem, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Arab boycott of Israel," and pass more than 50 resolutions concerning Israeli occupation of Arab territory, an Arab minister said.

Central to discussions would be "ending the occupation of all Arab territories, lifting the siege of the Palestinian people and their president Yasser Arafat, solidarity with the resistance of the Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian people as well as a call for the deployment of international (UN) forces in the Palestinian territorites," he told AFP.

Strong criticism from the OIC loomed for the United States, already ostracized in the Arab and Islamic world because of its deeply unpopular war on Iraq and its staunch support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The conference was to "denounce the unilateralism" of Washington's foreign policy and stress the importance of the "roadmap" for peace in the Middle East -- a blueprint for separate Palestinian and Israeli states by 2005 that is currently dead in the water.

Host Turkey is meanwhile hoping for a resolution supporting the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) because of its vote in favor of a UN-sponsored peace plan in April that would have ended Cyprus' nearly 30-year division.

The internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot south overwhelmingly voted down the proposal, but nonetheless joined the European Union on May 1.

The TRNC, recognised only by Turkey worldwide, enjoys observer status at the OIC.

"This would not be a formal recognition of the TRNC but rather a reinforcement of ties, and a call to end the (economic) embargo on the Turkish part of Cyprus," an Arab minister said.

"The Arab countries don't have a unified position on this question and will try to find a formula which will not endanger their excellent relationship with Greece," the minister said.

OIC Secretary General Abdelwahed Belkeziz paid a visit to the TRNC last month during which he said his organisation would "do its best" to help Turkish Cypriots improve their economic, political and commercial ties.

Turkey was also strongly in the running to take over the four-year position of secretary general, with 59-year-old Ikmal Eddine Ihsan Ogali pitted against contenders from Bangladesh and Malaysia.