In an interview with AFP, he said: "I am categorically in favor of NATO's engagement in the operation in Iraq. There is no doubt this will happen, the question is to know when. Let's hope it will be soon."

He said a UN Security Council resolution was necessary for NATO to embark in Iraq and "a local government would seem to needed for such a resolution to be adopted."

France said Thursday that NATO forces could be sent to Iraq, but only if an Iraqi government made the request and other Middle East countries did not perceive a deployment to be a threat.

Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin raised the possibility in an interview with Paris's Le Figaro newspaper in which he reaffirmed his government's position that the priority for Iraq was to regain its sovereignty after nearly a year of US-led military occupation.

In Ankara, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO was prepared to assist Spain should it agree to take over the command of the multinational military contingent in Iraq, which is currently headed by Poland.

"Spain could do that and if Spain would ask for NATO assistance NATO will certainly give it," de Hoop Scheffer told a press conference following talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Spain, a NATO member serving in Iraq, currently has 1,300 troops in the war-torn country.

Bulgaria, which is set to join NATO later this year, also has some 400 troops in Iraq.

WAR.WIRE