United Nations ? Israel asked the United Nations Friday to postpone the planned visit of a fact-finding team to the Jenin refugee camp, but Secretary-General Kofi Annan said there was no reason for delay.

He said he expects the three-member team and its advisers to arrive in Israel on Saturday as scheduled.

“I think our talks are going reasonably well,” Annan told The Associated Press. “We are giving them the appropriate clarifications, and I do expect the team to leave tomorrow. I don’t think there’s any reason for further delay.”

The group plans to investigate Israel’s assault on the camp. Palestinians claim civilians were massacred. Israel claims it was a military operation aimed at Palestinian militants behind a string of suicide bombings against Israelis.

A statement Friday from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office said issues are still unresolved, such as who will be on the team and what the mission would be. Israel asked for a delay until the discussions were satisfactorily completed.

A well-informed diplomat said Israel wants to expand the team and is concerned the United Nations was willing to add only advisers.

Israel insists that the team include more military and counter-terrorism experts, that it investigate Palestinian terrorism in the Jenin camp as well as the attacks, that the probe be limited to Jenin, and that both sides agree on a framework for the team’s activities.

U.N. and Israeli officials first met to discuss the mission Thursday. A second meeting was scheduled for early Friday afternoon.

“The Israeli team in New York … has been ordered to insist on the points determined before it set out” for New York, the statement said.

It said Israel’s position cannot be reconciled with the mandate in a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted hours after Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Secretary-General Kofi Annan last Friday that it would welcome a U.N. representative “to clarify the facts” of what happened in the Jenin refugee camp. Peres told Annan that “Israel has nothing to hide.”

The resolution “welcomes the initiative of the secretary-general to develop accurate information regarding recent events in the Jenin refugee camp through a fact-finding team and requests him to keep the Security Council informed.”

It also expresses concern at “the dire humanitarian situation” of Palestinian civilians and “emphasizes the urgency of access of medical and humanitarian organizations to the Palestinian civilian population.”

On Monday, Annan appointed three team members former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari; Cornelio Sommaruga, a former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross; and Sadako Ogata, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Hours later, Israel called for a delay in the mission to seek clarifications.

Annan agreed to a request by the Israelis to send a delegation from Jerusalem to meet with U.N. officials. But he refused to put off the mission, sending team members to Geneva for preparatory meetings.

Arab nations have introduced a new Security Council resolution demanding that Israel and the Palestinians “cooperate fully with the fact-finding team appointed by the secretary-general without any hindrance or conditions.”

Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe, who introduced the resolution, said council members would discuss it later Friday. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said.

A Western diplomat said after Thursday’s talks that Israel is seeking the maximum precautions, but it doesn’t want to refuse the mission.

Israel has been seeking to make the mission’s military adviser, retired U.S. Maj. Gen. William Nash, a full member of the team, and to add military and counter-terrorism experts.

On Thursday, the United Nations added two additional military officers to the mission. The names and nationalities of the officers were not disclosed.