LONDON (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan dismissed the notion that countries such as France and Russia might have been prepared to ease sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq in return for bribes and oil contracts, calling it "inconceivable".
In an interview with British television channel ITV, to be broadcast on Sunday, Annan rejected as unrealistic the allegations made earlier this month in a US weapons report.
According to chief US weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who has ploughed through tonnes of secret Iraqi documents, the Iraqi intelligence service tried to bribe many foreign nationals with oil export vouchers.
They paid particular attention to influential personalities in France and Russia because the two countries hold permanent seats on the UN Security Council, Duelfer said.
However Annan said such tactics, or promises to give lucrative oil contacts to companies from nations such as France, Russia and China, also a permanent Security Council member, would have been unlikely to work.
"I don't think the Russian or the French or the Chinese government would allow itself to be bought because some of his companies are getting relative contracts of the Iraqi authorities," said Annan, who is currently on a visit to Ireland.
"I don't believe that at all."
He added: "I think it's inconceivable, these are very serious and important governments. You are not dealing with banana republics."
In comments also likely to irritate Washington, Annan said he did not think last year's US-led invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam had made the world a safer place.
"I cannot not say the world is safer when you consider the violence around us, when you look around you and see the terrorist attacks around the world and you see what is going on in Iraq," he said.
"I cannot say the world is safer. We have a lot of work to do as an international community to try and make the world safer."
Tough UN sanctions against Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait permitted the energy-rich state to export only small quantities of oil, on the condition the proceeds would be used to buy food and medicine for Iraqis.
According to Duelfer's report, as of June 2000, Iraq awarded France around 15 percent of all the contracts allocated under this so-called oil-for-food programme.