UNITED NATIONS, Sept 9 (AFP) - The United Nations on Thursday said it still had no commitments of troops to protect its staff in Iraq, where UN personnel are working at the "outer limit" of acceptable risk.
"There (may) be some promising leads we're following but we've got nothing sewn up yet," chief UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "It's been an exhausting and exhaustive search."
The UN Security Council provided for the establishment of a dedicated force, to protect UN staff and facilities in Iraq, separate from the multinational troops led by the United States who are working with the Iraqi government.
Secretary General Kofi Annan pulled all international UN personnel out of Iraq last year in the wake of a bomb attack on the UN's headquarters that killed 22 people, including his envoy to the country.
But his new envoy has re-estalished a tiny UN presence in Baghdad in recent weeks, and Annan said in a new report to the council that the protective force would have to be operational before the UN mission there could expand.
"The small United Nations presence in the 'international zone' is operating at the outer level of acceptable and prudent risk," Annan said.