Meanwhile, key Security Council members maintained sharp differences Tuesday over the future role of U.N. arms inspectors in Iraq, clouding a decision on when to lift economic sanctions against the war-battered country, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The United States and Britain have "assumed responsibility for the disarming of Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte told reporters.

"For the time being and for the foreseeable future, we see that as a coalition activity," he said after the council met behind closed doors with Blix.

But Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov insisted that only UN inspectors had the legal authority to declare Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction.

"We all want to know that there is no WMD in Iraq and the only way to verify is to have inspectors in Iraq to see for themselves and report to the Security Council," Lavrov said.

"As soon as they deliver their report, the sanctions can be lifted," he said.

Blix avoided fuelling a potential diplomatic row, telling reporters that "everybody in the council realizes that it is too early" for the inspectors to return to Iraq.

But Blix told council members that "finding the long-sought truth" about Iraq's suspected nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs "is an interest that is not limited to the governments that have pursued the war."

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, steering a middle course between the United States and its critics, noted that Blix had said that UNMOVIC was ready to do whatever the council wanted it to do.

"We welcome that," Greenstock said.

But he said "the situation on the ground is still one of only relative security and it is not yet a safe environment for the inspectors to do what should be their normal work."

Iraq has been under comprehensive sanctions -- including an arms embargo, a trade ban, an air embargo, diplomatic sanctions and a freeze on its assets and financial dealings -- since it invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

Meanwhile, the White House gave a chilly welcome Tuesday to suggestions that UN disarmament inspectors return soon to Iraq.

"We are looking forward, not backward. Saddam Hussein's regime is gone and we will need to reassess the framework designed to disarm the regime, given the new facts on the ground," said spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Fleischer said that the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" had taken over the inspectors' role of hunting for any banned weapons of mass destruction, whose alleged presence was a key justification for military action.

"The coalition is taking on the responsibility for dismantling Iraq's WMD, as you have seen through the various inspections and operations that the coalition has carried out and will continue to carry out," said the spokesman.

Negroponte said that "because of the dramatically changed circumstances in Iraq," the United States believed that "sanctions should be lifted as soon as possible."

U.S. President George W. Bush has called for an end to UN economic sanctions on Iraq.

France, for its part, called on the Security Council Tuesday to immediately "suspend" civilian sanctions against Iraq, but asserted that their removal as suggested by the United States required the UN to certify Iraq free of banned weapons.

Suspension would mean that the sanctions remained in legal force but were not applied. Lifting the sanctions means their complete disappearance.

"I have proposed that the decision should be taken to immediately suspend the civilian sanctions," the French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, told reporters.

De La Sabliere noted that the lifting of sanctions was "linked to the certification of the disarmament of Iraq".

However, French officials said de La Sabliere did not present the council with a draft resolution to suspend the sanctions.

Russian UN Ambassador Sergei Lavrov said the proposal was "made orally" during closed-door consultations with the chief UN arms inspector, Hans Blix, and added: "We still have to discuss it."