UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25 (Reuter) - The identification of voters in Western Sahara should be resumed as soon as possible and a referendum on the future of the disputed territory held within a year, a U.N. spokesman said on Thursday.

He was summarizing recommendations sent by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to members of the Security Council based on the results of four rounds of talks since June between representatives of Morocco and the Polisario Front, under the auspices of Annan's personal representative for Western Sahara, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.

Baker was to brief the council on Friday. The referendum, originally scheduled for January 1992, is to decide whether Western Sahara should be incorporated into Morocco, which controls most of the former Spanish colony, or become independent, as called for by Polisario.

The referendum has been repeatedly delayed because of differences over who should be eligible to vote. But after the last round of talks, in Houston earlier this month, Baker said a code of conduct governing a referendum had been agreed.

The secretary-general is planning to send a technical team to the region in the first half of October to assess requirements for the deployment of a U.N. observer force at full strength.

The force, called the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), has been monitoring a ceasefire between Morocco and Polisario since September 1991 but now numbers only about 230 men.

``The identification operation should be resumed as soon as possible and a referendum held within a year,'' the U.N. spokesman said.

The secretary-general also recommended that MINURSO's mandate, due to expire September 30, be extended for three weeks, until October 20, to enable Security Council members to consult with their governments on the proposed expansion of the mission.

Annan recommended that the mandate should then be extended for a further six months, until April 20, 1998, to enable the mission to proceed with voter identification and related tasks.

Annan expected to present a fuller report in November, including a detailed plan and timetable for holding the referendum and an estimate of the financial costs involved, the U.N. spokesman said.