UN official urges new Iraqi efforts

The head of the United Nations oil-for-food programme for Iraq has urged the UN Security Council to put politics aside and focus on improving the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people.

The programme director, Benon Sevan, told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that the Council could do better than it had been doing.

But it needed the co-operation of all the parties: the council members, the govenment of Iraq and everyone else concerned with the programme.

He had just delivered a report to the council by the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, urging it to further streamline which he described as the cumbersome approval procedures for goods imported by Iraq.

Baghdad cut back its oil exports for about two months at the start of the current phase of the progrmme over a row with the UN about the price it is allowed to charge for its curde oil.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service