The UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan recommends sending some 6,000 peacekeeping troops to Ivory Coast despite the misgivings of the United States.
Mr Annan proposes dispatching 6,240 troops, including 200 military observers, to the West African nation. Once a model of stability in Africa, Ivory Coast has been torn apart by civil war since rebel soldiers mutinied against the government in September 2002.
Ivory Coast and France lobbied the UN Security Council and the United States last year to deploy UN peacekeepers to the former French colony.
US officials have been wary of approving any new peacekeeping venture in Ivory Coast because they say Washington's costs would rise dramatically. UN peacekeeping missions are financed by all 191 UN member countries, with the United States paying 27 per cent of the peacekeeping budget.
A UN spokesman said Washington's reaction would come in UN Security Council sessions next week.
In the report to the council, Annan said the peacekeeping troops should be deployed only if the parties involved in resolving the civil war made "sufficient progress" by February 4th in addressing basic issues "to ensure that the peace process becomes irreversible."
Those issues include a reaffirmation from the rebels of the so-called New Forces to remain as part of the coalition government until elections next year. The coalition government was set up under the peace deal to end the war.
They also include a commitment by the government to finish considering reforms aimed at deciding whether up to three million people in the country should be granted Ivorian citizenship, and whether those without full citizenship should be entitled to own land.
Peacekeepers from France and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are now enforcing a cease-fire in the world's largest cocoa producer.