The phone call was initiated by de Villepin but Powell had decided to speak with his colleague after giving an interview on Tuesday in which he confirmed for the first time that Washington would take unspecified measures against Paris because of its stance on the conflict, officials said.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the conversation between Powell and de Villepin, who was in Amman, Jordan as part of the Middle East tour, was "reflective of the current relationship we have with France."

He described the relationship as uneasy: the nations remaining allies with certain shared values but ties have been badly damaged by recent "serious and difficult" disagreements.

"We have had some fairly strong disagreements lately and we need to also think about how to deal with those and what the implications might be in terms of the kind of cooperation we can have on these issues," Boucher said.

"Understand that we did have these disagreements, understand that they were serious and difficult and that that has consequences for the future," he told reporters.

"There is obviously an effect on the relationship, on how we look at things, how we evaluate athings and how we look at things we might want to do as we move forward," Boucher added.

He would not say what measures Washington would take and senior State Department officials told AFP earlier that Powell was not in a position to tell de Villepin exactly what they would be.

But those officials said steps under consideration included sidelining France at NATO and not inviting it or watering down its presence at a variety of US-sponsored and -hosted international forums.

The first public manifestation of the measures will likely be at NATO where one official said Washington might bypass the alliance's traditional governing body, the North Atlantic Council, in favor of the Defense Planning Committee, from which France resigned in 1966.

"Look at how we handle some issues at NATO," the official said.

A second official said the United States might try to downgrade or outright eliminate French participation in consultative groups on the sidelines of UN and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meetings.

"The way we deal with the French has to be based on the reality of what we can expect about their willingness to work with us diplomatically and otherwise," that official said.

In an interview with PBS television Tuesday, Powell became the most senior member of President George W. Bush's administration to say that France would face consequences for opposing the US war effort.

"We have to take a look at the relationship," Powell said. "We have to look at all aspects of our relationship with France in light of this."

Asked directly whether Paris would be punished, he replied bluntly: "Yes."

Boucher said Powell and de Villepin had chuckled over some accounts of the interview in French newspapers, including one that suggested the secretary's response was the equivalent of another three-letter word: "war."

"They kind of laughed about some of the exaggerated press reporting of what 'yes' means," he said. "They are both three-letter words, I guess, but one should understand that there can be consequences without war."

Then, they got down to business, Boucher said, discussing not only the "consequences" mentioned by Powell, but also the Middle East and current issues at the United Nations related to Iraq including the lifting of sanctions.

France on Tuesday issued a surprise proposal to suspend the sanctions but the United States, citing the fall of Saddam Hussein, is demanding that they be completely lifted.

"The sanctions should be lifted, not merely suspended," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Boucher agreed but offered a bit of an olive branch to the French.

"It is ... a move in our view in the right direction," he said. "It's the recognition that there is a changed situation.

"We think that changed situation justifies, in fact, dictates that we should lift all the sanctions and not in any way inconvenience the Iraqi people as they try to establish normal relationships and status in the world," he added.

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