Diplomats said they expected to be presented with the much-awaited letters between US commanders and the new Iraqi government that will govern future military operations in Iraq.

The 15-nation council held a retreat Saturday to discuss the resolution, one of the final pieces in the puzzle that will spell out the legal framework for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq more than a year after the war began.

"I think we have dealt with almost all of the issues that have been raised. We're getting there," US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters travelling with US President George W. Bush in Europe on Saturday.

Several key council nations, including China and France, had at first indicated serious opposition to the resolution when an initial draft was put forward last month.

But much of the grounding for that opposition melted away after Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the council Thursday that the resolution was "quite adequate" to ensure Iraq would be free to govern its own affairs.

"If the new sovereign government is satisfied, it would seem to me that should satisfy all of my colleagues on the Security Council," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Saturday.

The United States and Britain would like a vote next week after the council gets a briefing Monday from the UN's Iraq envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi. But no date has yet been set.

The exchange of letters will spell out how much control Iraqis will have over US-led military operations in Iraq and the roughly 160,000 troops who will remain after June 30.

Zebari indicated this week that Iraq did not want a veto over US-led army operations -- something Powell had already ruled out, anyway -- but said his government should have a say in major military undertakings.

With Security Council nations grumbling about how long a mandate US forces should be given in the resolution, the Iraqi minister made clear they would need to stay in Iraq for "some time" to prevent chaos and civil war.

Meanwhile, a new resolution on Iraq expected to be adopted by the UN Security Council this week will provide for an expiration of a US-led security force mandate by the end of next year, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday.

"It will say that at the end of 2005, when this political process has run its course, we've had the constitution written and free elections, at that point this mandate probably should come to an end," Powell told CNN television in an interview.