American officials and the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, are reportedly negotiating with members of the bank’s board over terms for his resignation from his post in the wake of a conflict-of-interest dispute involving a bank employee who is his girlfriend.

The discussions followed an abrupt change in stance Tuesday by the White House, which had previously rejected demands from bank staffers and European nations that Mr. Wolfowitz step down.

“I thought the statements to the effect of letting the process play out were pretty ominous,” the American representative on the board between 2002 and 2006, Robert Holland III, said yesterday. “These most recent ones I don’t see leaving much possibility of board resistance to his termination.”

A bank investigation found that Mr. Wolfowitz violated internal rules by arranging a pay hike, a promotion, and an out-of-bank assignment for his companion, Shaha Riza. He has admitted to making mistakes in his handling of the matter, but he said his actions were part of a good faith effort to comply with ethics advice that the report found was unclear.

The outlines of the deal reported to be under discussion would involve some acknowledgement that the bank shared blame for the episode. It could also contain elements of a proposal floated by European diplomats under which America could choose a new head for the bank unilaterally if Mr. Wolfowitz would step down.

Mr. Wolfowitz’s attorney, Robert Bennett, did not return a call seeking comment for this article. He told CNN yesterday that talk of Mr. Wolfowitz’s exit was “premature.”

Supporters of Mr. Wolfowitz reacted with dismay to the latest developments and said his looming ouster was a result of his role as deputy secretary of defense in planning for the Iraq war.

“There’s no doubt this is political retribution for what is thought to have been Paul’s role in the decision to bring down Saddam Hussein,” Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute said. “I don’t know anyone who believes this would have happened if Paul had been a skeptic about the war or even supported it in some fashion.”

Mr. Perle said Mr. Wolfowitz had been felled by bank staffers and by diplomats who were using the ethics charges a pretext. Asked why they had not simply blocked his installation as president of the bank in 2005, Mr. Perle said, “They are wimps.”

“They didn’t have the courage. … They should have said, ‘We are not prepared to test whether he would be a great leader of the World Bank. We don’t like his views on Iraq. We’re not going to accept them,'” he said.

Asked how much of the pressure for Mr. Wolfowitz’s ouster is due to factors other than the ethics issues, Mr. Holland said, “100%.”

A spokesman for a Web-based civic advocacy group calling for Mr. Wolfowitz’s ouster, Benjamin Winkler of Avaaz.org, said he was pleased with the apparent movement toward the bank head’s departure.

“It’s about time,” Mr. Winkler said. “We’ve been stunned by how far the Bush administration was willing to go to put Wolfowitz’s career ahead of the interests of the mission of the bank. … The World Bank was essentially paralyzed in its mission of fighting poverty until he’s gone.”

The concern on the part of some activists about the efficient operation of the bank may strike some as surprising, as anti-globalization activists have often denounced the bank, related institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, as enemies of the world’s poor.

Mr. Winkler said changes at the bank prior to Mr. Wolfowitz’s arrival addressed many of those concerns. “The bank really responded to a lot of those criticisms,” he said. “It got better. Under Wolfowitz, it’s been going in the other direction.”

Mr. Perle said he was dubious that World Bank staffers were as abstemious and focused on delivering aid as insiders have suggested. “If you leave Washington on an international flight, one thing that’s sure is that the first class cabin will be full of World Bank employees,” he said.

Mr. Holland said he saw Mr. Wolfowitz’s demise as the bank’s bureaucracy seeking to oust him because of his efforts to place stricter anti-corruption requirements on the countries seeking funding. The former director said the episode would make it hard to find a reformer to take over the bank’s leadership.

“Any sane person who has had lifetime accomplishment of the type that would qualify him for the job would have to think long and hard about what’s gone on here and whether they want to step into it,” Mr. Holland said.