BBC

Wednesday, 5 September, 2001, 07:19 GMT 08:19 UK Iraq expels UN officials

The UN has several teams in Iraq

The UN says Iraq has expelled five of its officials working on the food-for-oil programme.

Baghdad says they have infringed its national security.

According to the United Nations, it was given the expulsion orders against four Nigerians and a Bosnian on Sunday night.

The Iraqi Foreign Affairs Ministry handed the UN a note saying the five had 72 hours to leave the country.

Infringement

"They are not allowed to enter Iraqi territory," the note said, according to the Reuters news agency.

"This is due to their performing of activities that infringe on the national security of the Republic of Iraq, which are inconsistent with their assigned responsibilities."

Benon Sevan, the UN undersecretary-general in charge of the Iraqi programme, sent a note to the Iraqi authorities stating that they had "not provided any detail or supporting evidence to charges levelled against the five staff members."

Mr Sevan said Iraq had violated an international treaty governing the treatment of UN staff.

In his view, Iraq should have given UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan details of the charges, for him to decide on the appropriate response.

Despite this protest, the UN has complied with the order for what it described as security reasons.

The five staff members include three Nigerian men and one woman, and a Bosnian woman who is not currently in Iraq.

Oil-for-food

The oil-for-food programme allows Iraq to sell oil internationally to enable it to buy food, medicine and other approved goods under UN supervision.

The programme was introduced in December 1997 as a way of easing sanctions.

Iraq has protested in the past that it is another way of extending the sanctions introduced after the Gulf War in Aug

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2001

Answers

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/248/world/U_N_challenges_Iraqi_expulsi on:.shtml

U.N. challenges Iraqi expulsion of five U.N. workers

By Sameer Yacoub, Associated Press, 9/5/2001 19:11

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) United Nations officials said Wednesday that Iraq failed to support its charges that five U.N. workers expelled from the Mideast nation were leaking security information to ''enemy states.''

Also Wednesday, U.N. officials in New York said on condition of anonymity that a sixth employee, a Dutch national, had been expelled Friday for taking photographs in public.

The five officials, a Bosnian and four Nigerians, worked at the U.N. office overseeing humanitarian programs in Iraq, which is allowed to sell oil for necessities such as food and medicine.

Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, interviewed Wednesday on Iraqi television, said U.N. employees ''must protect the security of information available to them and should not supply such information to another country.

''The many wrongdoings of the U.N. employees, who were serving the goals and policies of enemy states of Iraq, are shame enough for the United Nations,'' he said.

Sabri did not name any countries. Asked if the U.N. officials had been spying, he said, ''It is something within this frame the frame that harms the security of the country, the national security of Iraq.''

Iraq sent the expulsion order for the five to the United Nations in New York Sunday. The U.N. office in Baghdad said the Nigerians had left Iraq Tuesday. The Bosnian woman was not in Iraq when the expulsion order was delivered.

In a letter to Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Benon Sevan the head of the U.N. Iraq program said , ''I very much regret that, despite our request, the government of Iraq has not provided any detail or supporting evidence to charges leveled against the five staff members,'' wrote the U.N. official.

The U.N. monitors Iraq's oil sales and the use of the proceeds to buy humanitarian goods. U.N. sanctions, imposed to punish Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990, bar Iraq from trading freely and can be lifted only after Iraq proves to it has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction.

The Dutch national was employed by the Swiss company Cotecna, which is subcontracted by the U.N. to handle supply inspections at entry points into Iraq.

No names were available for the six employees.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2001