WASHINGTON will press the United Nations today to send a veteran troubleshooter to Iraq to defuse the growing opposition of Iraq’s Shia majority to the coalition’s plan for the country.

Diplomats say that the Bush Administration wants Lakhdar Brahimi, who has just stepped down as the United Nations envoy in Afghanistan, to travel to Iraq to try to broker a deal between the coalition and the powerful Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The request will be made at a three-way meeting in New York today between Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary- General, members of the Iraqi Governing Council and Paul Bremer and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, representating the coalition.

Mr Brahimi intends to miss the meeting, but he is expected to meet Mr Bremer on the sidelines.

After originally rejecting a leading role for the UN in Iraq, the United States-led coalition is now hoping that the world body can help it to implement its plan to hand over power to a provisional government at the end of June. The plan calls for indirect elections to a new assembly through a series of caucuses to be held in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces.

Ayatollah al-Sistani has demanded direct elections that would give greater representation to Iraq’s 15 million Shia majority. Last week, the Shias flexed their political muscle by staging mass demonstrations against the coalition’s plan.

After talks at the White House on Friday, Mr Bremer, the US representative in Iraq, suggested that there could be “refinements” and “clarification” of the transition plan as long as the June 30 deadline remained in place.

Mr Annan tried to telephone Ayatalloh al-Sistani several weeks ago to discuss the stand-off, but the cleric refused to take the call. The UN chief ended up having a 13-minute conversation with the Ayatollah’s son instead.

Nevertheless, Washington and London are pushing Mr Annan to send Mr Brahimi to help bring Ayatollah al-Sistani on board. The former Algerian Foreign Minister, who worked closely with the Americans in setting up a new Government in Afghanistan, has acted as an informal go-between for the United States and Iran. His good relations with Teheran could give him leverage with Ayatollah al-Sistani. Mr Brahimi has also just been named a special adviser to the UN chief in New York amid speculation that he will take on new responsibilities in Iraq.

He has made clear that he does not want to replace Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN Special Representative who was killed in a suicide bomb attack at the UN headquarters in Baghdad, but he does not rule out playing a role.

“What has been said was that I would be in charge of Iraq. That’s definitely not the case,” he said last week, “but how we are going to organise this new assignment with the Secretary-General is something we will discuss. I don’t exclude being involved from here with any of the issues that the UN will be dealing with in the field of peace and security.”

The UN has also been relying on advice from Ghassan Salameh, the former Lebanese Culture Minister, who served as Mr Vieira de Mello’s top adviser in Baghdad. He is seen as a proponent of the Iraqi Governing Council, which makes him less acceptable to Shias loyal to Ayatollah al-Sistani.

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