WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (AFP) - Iraq's interim prime minister Iyad Allawi said he would seek an explanation from UN chief Kofi Annan about his attitude to Iraq's elections when they meet on Friday at the United Nations.
Allawi said he would also meet the Iranian foreign minister as part of attempts to win regional support to improve security in his country where his government and US forces are battling a major insurgency.
The prime minister will meet Annan and Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi when he goes to the UN General Assembly on another key day to seek international support for his US-backed attempts to stabilise Iraq.
The United Nations is providing assistance for elections which Allawi and the United States have insisted will be held in January.
But Annan has indicated doubts about the elections and Allawi told a Washington meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations, a private think tank, he will seek a clarification of Annan's position.
"You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," the UN secretary general said in a recent interview with the BBC.
Annan said he had taken "a calculated risk" because of the troubles in sending teams to help set up the interim government and a legal framework for the elections. He added that "security will be a factor" in whether satisfactory elections will be held.
"The judgment will have to be made by the Iraqi government which is going to run the elections, who will be supporting them. Obviously there may come a time when we have to make our own independent assessment," Annan told the BBC.
Asked about Friday's meeting, Allawi said "I am expecting an explanation from him tomorrow."
But he also expressed confidence that the United Nations would back the elections.
Despite a mounting casualty toll for US and Iraqi forces, Allawi and the US administration, which has about 140,000 troops in Iraq, has insisted the elections will be held on schedule in January.
But US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday that more US troops may have to be sent to Iraq to provide security for the elections.
Allawi's second key meeting will be with the foreign minister of Iran, which has been accused by US officials of giving support to insurgents in Iraq.
Relations between the two Muslim neighbours have improved dramatically since the April 2003 fall of Saddam, but a full normalisation has been complicated by the US occupation of Iraq that is fiercely opposed by Tehran.
But Allawi's government has sought to win over Iran and another key neighbour, Syria, in recent months.
The prime minister said he would discuss "tensions and problems" that have already been raised with Tehran when he meets Kharazi, who is also attending the UN General Assembly.
Iraq and the United States have also urged Syria to tighten its border to stop foreign fighters entering Iraq.
Allawi said that when he met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus in July he sent a very clear message: "We can get into a boxing matches with explosives but this will get us nowhere" or "we can try to build a better region."
The prime minister said he believed Syria wanted "to build better relations" and added "things are improving and we think they may improve a lot more."