MADRID: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is looking into stepping up the world organisation's presence in Iraq following his recent visit there, according to a newspaper interview published here on Sunday.
"Our activities have been limited by the situation there but after my visit to Iraq and seeing the situation with my own eyes I am thinking about how we can make new contributions to increase our presence," he told the ABC newspaper.
'The UN has played a major constructive role to help the Iraqi government,' Ban, who is to visit Spain on Tuesday and Wednesday, added.
The United Nations cut back the number of their staff in Iraq after the bombing of its headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 which killed its special representative in the country, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and others.
Citing an unnamed source in the US administration the British newspaper The Guardian said last month that the United States was in favour of greater UN involvement in the war-torn country to eventually allow a cut-back of US troops. But Ban said it was 'not correct that the United States is putting pressure on the UN to step up its role' in Iraq.
Ban was to meet King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero during his upcoming visit to Madrid. He will also stop at the headquarters of the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). He will be in Germany Thursday and Friday to attend the G8 summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.
