GENEVA - The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, is trying to organize a meeting of foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in Geneva this weekend to discuss the situation in Iraq, French diplomats said on Monday.

A gathering of ministers from Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States on Saturday would examine a Security Council resolution proposed by Washington, which aims to expand the UN's mandate in Iraq and set up a multinational force under US command, the diplomats said as carried by AFP.

"Kofi Annan has asked the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council about their availability for a possible meeting on the 13th in Geneva," a diplomat at the French mission to the UN in Geneva told AFP.

The diplomat explained that the preparations were Annan's personal initiative and that it was not certain that the meeting would take place.

The French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin had said he was ready to take part, he added.

Other diplomatic sources said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had also responded positively, but that a Russian response was still uncertain.

Annan's move came as U.S. President George Bush stepped up appeals for greater international and UN involvement in rebuilding Iraq as well as in peacekeeping under U.S. command.

But Russia, France and Germany, which has a temporary seat on the Security Council, have signaled they would oppose U.S. attempts to create a multilateral force in Iraq that ruled out an important role for the United Nations.