MADRID The World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to ask its member states to sign an international treaty against smoking and tobacco addiction, AFP quoted officials as saying Thursday.

"The WHO wants to get legislation approved that will get everyone to fight smoking," said Marc Danzon, the WHO's European regional director. He added that smoking is the "most avoidable health risk linked to consumption."

"This will be the first international treaty involving public health," explained Haik Nikogossian, the head of the WHO's Anti-Smoking Campaign in Europe and a former Armenian health minister.

Some 1.2 million Europeans die from smoking-related causes every year and this number could climb to 2 million, or 20 percent of all annual deaths, if no measures are taken, according to WHO figures.

According to the WHO, there will be 1.6 billion smokers worldwide in 2005, up from 1.1 billion today.

Smoking is spreading notably among women and young people, and the population of developing countries, the who says.

"Because of more restrictive legislation in Western Europe, the tobacco industry has started promoting itself in developing countries," Danzon said.

The WHO will host a conference in Warsaw from February 18-19 for "a Europe without tobacco" and a world anti-smoking conference in Geneva in May 2003.

The Warsaw conference will deal with "banning publicity and promotion, raising taxes, banning smoking in public places, and increased educated to encourage people not to smoke, or to encourage them to stop smoking," Nikogossian said.