The UN's role "remains as significant as ever," he said during an address to the Senate, adding that its participation in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq would be "vital."

Frattini's choice of the word "vital" echoed the formula used by United States President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair after their summit, in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, to discuss the role of the UN after Saddam Hussein.

Blair, along with the rest of Europe, has been pushing for a stronger role for the UN than the one the US appeared ready to give it.

Speaking in Belfast on Tuesday, Bush described that role as largely humanitarian and advisory rather than one central to overseeing the country and establishing a new government.

Frattini said he had also been assured by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Washington envisaged the UN playing a "vital and strategic" part in rebuilding Iraq.

When and how the UN would move onto the Iraqi stage were questions that still had to be decided, he said.

"It will be up to the Security Council to decide."

Frattini also stressed that despite its political and military weight, the US still needed allies.

"This is a fact of which they themselves are aware," he said.

Italy, along with Spain and Britain, was one of the strongest supporters of the US-led war in Iraq, while Germany and France led a coalition of countries within the European Union in support of a UN-negotiated solution.

(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2003)