"Even if the United States are currently less well disposed to the United Nations, they have not rejected multilateralism," Blix told a seminar on Iraq here.

"Nobody can make progress in the today's world without support from multilateral institutions and organisations," he said.

Blix acknowledged that Washington had sidestepped the UN Security Council in its launch of military operations in Iraq, but he said US foreign policy was more nuanced elsewhere.

For example, Blix said the United States "favours a multilateral approach in North Korea, and rejects a bilateral approach", adding this is "a bit ironic".

Blix said the United States supports international verification procedures for nuclear weapons as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"This is why it is dangerous to extrapolate and to draw conclusions that are not borne out by reality," Blix said.

Blix also said that the polarisation over Iraq in the UN Security Council with the United States and Britain on one side, and France, Germany and Russia on the other, was not likely to change the international diplomatic scene.

He said that Britain had agreed with the French view that the UN should play a major role in Iraq's reconstruction.

"In the long term, it will be difficult for the United States to remain the only administrator in Iraq, an occupying administrator. They will, on the contrary, have to act jointly with the UN," he said.

Blix also said he does not believe that either NATO or the European Union had suffered unduly from the Iraq question, even if the Iraqi question was "no great example of joint EU foreign policy".

Blix reiterated that he will not be part of any post-war UN inspection team in Iraq, as he will be retiring in June.

SPACE.WIRE