Brussels  - Just four days before NATO leaders were due to gather for a summit, there was still no consensus on who should be the alliance's next chief, diplomats in Brussels said Monday.

"There is a lot of talk going on now about choosing a successor" to the current secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, but there "is no consensus yet," senior US officials said.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been widely-tipped as the front-runner in the race to succeed de Hoop Scheffer, whose mandate expires at the end of July.

But Turkey has been sending mixed signals about the choice of Rasmussen of late.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was reported as saying that his country had reservations about Rasmussen because of "considerable irritation in the Islamic countries" over his role during the early-2006 controversy over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons in Denmark.

Erdogan's remarks came a day after Turkish President Abdullah Gul, while in Brussels to meet European Union officials, had said Turkey had nothing against Rasmussen.

Several NATO diplomats confirmed Monday that no agreement had yet been reached over the right candidate, but they declined to cite Turkish opposition as a cause.

The natural venue for choosing a new chief would be Friday and Saturday's NATO summit in Strasbourg and Baden Baden, which will be attended by leaders of all 26 NATO members.

However, diplomats in Brussels said they could not predict whether a decision would be reached this week.

"A summit decision would be a good boost if there is consensus around a candidate, but it is not necessary. We'll take it as we go," one US official said.

A failure to reach an agreement at the summit would be "no catastrophe," another diplomat said, noting that a decision could be taken at any time.

Denmark, Canada, Norway, Poland and Bulgaria have all reportedly put forward their own candidates.

Diplomats stressed that while the choice of secretary general would not depend on the candidate's country of origin, there would have to be an agreement on who would be "the best person" for the job among all 26 member states. (dpa)