Iraq attacks complicate UN role plans

by Paul Reynolds BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

The latest bomb in Baghdad makes the attempt by the United States to bring the United Nations back into Iraq even more difficult.

Kofi Annan: role of UN at stake

It is possible that the bomb was set off on the day preceding important talks at the UN in New York precisely to deter the UN from taking up a more significant role. It reminds the world in any case that the resistance continues.

A senior British official said in London recently that he doubted whether the UN wanted to get much more involved before the handover of power by the end of June.

"[UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan wants to talk about a role for the UN post 30 June. I am not sure of a UN role before that," he said.

The UN role after 30 June would be in helping to set up the elections for the constitutional assembly by March next year, in drawing up the constitution itself and then organising full elections for a new government by the end of the year.

If Mr Annan decides to help pre 30 June, he may well have a price in terms of how large a voice the UN would have. He is likely to be cautious about being seen to endorse the existing plan outright.

He is expected to ask some tough questions.

The issues will be discussed on Monday in New York, when Mr Annan meets the American Iraq administrator Paul Bremer and a delegation from the Iraqi Governing Council led by Adnan Pachachi, its current chairman.

Call for UN intervention

They want him to intervene in the crisis caused by the insistence of the Shia spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that elections should be held for the transitional government which is due to take power at the end of June.

We are hoping to once again state the importance that the American Government and the coalition attach to the UN playing a vital role Paul Bremer

The British official said that they would like Mr Annan to inform the ayatollah that, in the UN's view, elections are not possible in the time available and that the best way is to improve the proposed system of countrywide meetings to choose the transitional assembly which will appoint the government.

Mr Bremer said: "We are hoping to once again state the importance that the American Government and the coalition attach to the UN playing a vital role."

He is refusing to hold elections or to postpone the handover date but has offered to make the meetings, which will determine the membership of the transitional assembly, more open and accessible.

Mr Pachachi, a veteran Sunni leader who was Iraqi foreign minister before the Baathists took power in 1968, hinted that Ayatollah Sistani would respond to a UN plea. "He would like to be persuaded that [elections] are not possible now," he said.

HAVE YOUR SAY The UN should never have left, and should return immediately. Martin, London, UK Send us your comments

The coalition also wants the UN to consider sending its just-appointed special adviser on Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi - ex-envoy to Afghanistan and a former Algerian foreign minister - to Iraq as a new special representative there. He would, therefore, be able to exert an influence on the ground.

The bomb makes that even less likely. Security alone would be a major problem. UN morale could not stand another fatal attack. Such a move might have to be put off until after 30 June.

Kurdish unrest

Another crisis for the coalition is growing in the north of Iraq. There the Kurds want the city of Kirkuk to be brought into their autonomous region.

As for a majority imposing its will on the Kurds, this cannot be tolerated Massoud Barzani

One of the Kurdish leaders, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, is quoted in the Washington Post as saying that the Kurds want their region extended and that Arab Iraqis who had settled in Kirkuk under Saddam Hussein should be expelled.

The Kurds oppose the majority Shia call for elections to the transitional government and Mr Barzani said: "As for a majority imposing its will on the Kurds, this cannot be tolerated."

The senior British official claimed that the Kurds "understand" that they will be "given room to breathe as a distinct population within Iraq with a regional government and assembly but that the Kurdish region will be geographically not ethnically based". This presumably implies a rejection of the Kurdish expansion hope.