The panel is expected to look into the issues of humanitarian needs, status of looted Kuwaiti property and fate of thousands of Kuwaitis said to be missing since the Gulf War, besides Iraq's disarmament.

There was wide consensus in the fifteen-member Council to set up a panel to study the issues as a first step to resolving the vexed question of resuming oversight in Iraq, they said here.

The proposal was made by Canada in an apparent bid to defuse the rising tension between Russia and the United States and was immediately supported by all.

But others opined that it would merely postpone the hard decisions that the Council has to take without resolving any issue.

The panel, they said, just could not help a sharply divided council to move towards any concrete action on Iraq in the wake ofBaghdad's decision not to allow United Nations weapons inspectors in.