BRUSSELS, Belgium – NATO foreign ministers agreed yesterday to launch the next phase of the alliance training mission in Iraq, a move that should see up to 300 military instructors arrive in Baghdad in the coming weeks.

The 300 will move first to Baghdad and to the outskirts of the capital by spring to set up a military academy for Iraqi armed forces, said NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

“The training mission in Iraq is running entirely according to schedule,” Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said. “The number of personnel will go up from its present 60 to around 300,” he told a news conference.

He said several NATO allies had come forward with offers of soldiers at the meeting of foreign ministers, including Poland, Hungary, and the Netherlands. At least 16 of the 26 NATO nations were expected to participate in the mission, but final details were still being worked out, according to NATO officials.

NATO had been struggling for weeks to muster instructors for the mission.

It is also looking for troops to expand the alliance’s peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

Alliance officials expressed disappointment that ministers had not committed all the troops, planes, and helicopters needed to extend NATO’s 8,000-strong Afghan peacekeeping force from its bases in Kabul and the north into the west of the country.

However, they said progress had been made and hoped remaining gaps could be plugged soon.

“I have full confidence that early in the new year, we will be ready to announce the next phase in Afghanistan,” Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said.

NATO already has around 60 soldiers at its training mission in the Iraqi capital, but delays finding the required extra instructors have cast doubt on plans to have the academy up and running before Iraqi elections planned for late next month.

Secretary of State Powell expressed disappointment that Germany, France, Belgium, Greece, and Spain were sticking to their refusal not to take part in the mission.

“I, of course, would have preferred that every member of the alliance would have participated in the effort,” he told a news conference. He was particularly concerned that those countries were prohibiting their troops assigned to NATO headquarters to participate. “We think it is a problem.”

Mr. Powell said such actions “hurt the credibility and cohesion” of NATO’s international staff organization.

However, he said commitments from other allies left him confident “that the need will be met, and the mission will be accomplished.”

Germany emphasized that it would not go back on a pledge to keep its troops out. “Our position is clear. We will not send German soldiers to Iraq,” the foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, said going into the meeting.

Separately, under the guidance of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric, Shiite parties officially presented a list yesterday of 228 candidates for next month’s elections. Minority Sunni Arabs, who had been favored under Saddam Hussein, must now decide whether to join the race or renounce a vote that will help determine the country’s future.

The announcement of the list of 23 parties, dubbed the United Iraqi Alliance, followed weeks of haggling. It includes two powerful Shiite parties, as well as an array of independent Sunni tribal figures, Shiite Kurdish groups, and members of smaller movements.