The United Nations has rebuffed European Union calls for its soldiers to deliver humanitarian aid to Libya, DPA reported.
The bloc's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Tuesday the UN believed there was no need for such a mission just yet.
The EU has began planning a humanitarian military mission - EUFOR Libya - but is waiting for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to authorize its deployment.
"If the United Nations asks us to help them with our military support, to get aid into the country, we are ready to do so," Ashton said in Luxembourg ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
"So far, they said there is not a need," she said.
According to Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, OCHA was philosophically opposed to seeing soldiers getting involved.
"OCHA very often sees humanitarian aid as black and white, (it doesn't) want any military involvement, where sometimes as we know there is need for military assistance to get aid in," he said.
But British Foreign Secretary William Hague seemed to agree with the UN assessment, pointing out that so far "humanitarian assistance is getting through to Libya, including to Misurata," without any military escort.
He was referring to the coastal town that has been besieged by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi for seven weeks.
Residents there have complained about a lack of food, water and medicine.
On Monday, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said at least 20 children died as a result of the fighting over Misurata, while tens of thousands more children were threatened by hunger, thirst, illness and death.
Ashton wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday to let him know that the EU was ready to act, and is due to meet him on Thursday in Cairo.
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