The US and Britain won unanimous UN Security Council approval for their resolution on the future of Iraq, where renewed violence yesterday claimed at least 18 lives.

The diplomatic triumph for Washington and London came just 22 days before the US-led coalition is due to return Iraq's sovereignty June 30, a date that marks the end of the formal occupation of the war-torn country.

US President George W Bush hailed the vote, saying it marked a significant day for the Iraqi people.

"The vote today in the United Nations Security Council was a great victory for the Iraqi people," Bush said after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a fierce opponent of the Iraq invasion.

"The international community showed that it stands side by side with the Iraqi people," he said on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Georgia.

"The UN Security Council resolution supports the interim government, supports free elections and supports a multinational force. America supports strongly the idea of a free society in the midst of hatred and intolerance."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as "an important milestone for the new Iraq," while Russian premier Vladimir Putin said,"Without any exaggeration I would state that it is a major step forward."

It was also welcomed by the leaders of France and Germany, two countries that had opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq last year.

Washington and London sealed their diplomatic victory late Monday with a compromise that won over Paris and Berlin.

The wide-ranging resolution returns Iraq's sovereignty with the endorsement of the international community, and helps close more than a year of public ill will over the US-led war and occupation.

The resolution gives Iraq control over the country's security forces and makes it clear that the 150 000-strong US-led force will remain after June 30 only at the request of the interim Iraqi government.

The measure stops short of giving Iraq a veto over military action that France had sought, with the backing of Germany and other council nations.

But under the compromise, the US and Iraq pledged to forge a policy to cooperate on "sensitive military operations," a key phrase that helped secure the backing of Paris and Berlin.

In other developments, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in Brussels that Nato could not "turn a blind eye" if Iraq's incoming administration requested assistance.

"I don't know if or when a sovereign and legitimate Iraqi government might request Nato assistance, but I do know the international community cannot simply afford to let Iraq fail," he said.

Four hostages held in Iraq -- three Italians and a Pole – were released and a number of their kidnappers arrested in a raid by coalition troops. The Italians were abducted in April, while the Pole was kidnapped last week.

All four freed hostages were said to be safe.

The four - three Italian security guards and a Polish contractor - had all been held at the same location and coalition forces captured some of their abductors, according to Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US military commander in Iraq, who declined to give further details.

A spokesman for the employer of the Polish contractor said the hostages had been released in Ramadi, northwest of Baghdad, but there was no confirmation from the US-led authorities in Iraq.

The relief in Italy and Poland was dampened by news that two Turkish men, senior employees of a Turkish construction company, had been taken hostage in Iraq late Sunday, according to a Turkish government official.

But the construction company for which the pair worked later said one man had been freed and returned safely, while his colleague and their driver could be released today.

In the latest bloodshed in Iraq, 18 people, including a US soldier, were killed and 68 people were wounded in attacks that largely occured in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, where insurgent attacks are commonplace.

At least six soldiers serving with Polish-led forces in Iraq were killed and several more wounded in a blast during a demining operation, officials said.

Those killed in the explosion at Suwayrah, south of Baghdad, included three Slovaks, two Polish nationals and a Latvian, officials from the three countries said.

"The incident took place during a demining operation," said Polish military spokesman Colonel Zdzislaw Gnatowski. "The accident happened in an old munitions depot dating back to the Saddam Hussein era." However, the spokesman later told AFP the deaths could also have been the result of a mortar or rocket attack.

A suicide car bomb and a roadside bomb exploded simultaneously in the northern city of Mosul, killing 10 people and wounding 37, according to hospital officials.

Earlier, a suicide car bomb exploded as Iraqis queued for work at a US military base in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, killing one US soldier and one Iraqi and wounding 31 other people, including ten US troops, military sources said.

Six hundred and eight US troops have now been killed in action since the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Saboteurs meanwhile attacked the Kirkuk-Turkey pipeline, Iraq's main oil export artery, the security chief for the Northern Oil Company said.

"Assailants detonated sound grenades on the pipeline Sunday at dawn, 120 kilometres east of Kirkuk, causing damage and the loss of a huge quantity of oil," said NOC security chief Ghazi Talabani. - Sapa-AFP