The minister was to hold talks with her American counterpart Donald Rumsfeld and with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, her spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said.

"The discussions in Washington will take place in a positive spirit of cooperation. They are a sign that our American partners want to talk to us as much as we want to talk to them," he said.

"In everything to do with security and defence we are truly in a process of cooperation and absolutely not of confrontation," he said.

The Paris daily Le Monde reported Thursday that the French government is studying the possibility of military involvement in Iraq under a UN banner once the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqis takes place in June.

WAR.WIRE