NEW DELHI, Feb 11 (AFP) - Former UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Friday refused to take the rap for the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, saying oil was smuggled outside the program by Baghdad which had direct dealings with Syria, Turkey and Iran.
Boutros-Ghali was UN secretary-general at the start of the program which was designed to allow Iraq to buy food and medicines to ease hardships caused by UN sanctions.
"We will have to wait for the whole report by Paul Volcker to get more information on what happened in the oil-for-food programme before we start passing judgements," Boutros-Ghali told reporters in New Delhi.
"The members of the UN Security Council and members of the United Nations share equal responsibility. (A) quantity of oil was smuggled outside the oil-for-food program through direct contact between Iraq and Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and Iraq and Iran," he added.
An inquiry into the oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 until 2003, found last week that it had suffered from lax UN controls.
The interim report authored by an enquiry panel headed by Paul Volcker, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, found Benon Sevan, who headed the UN program, obtained allocations of oil from Saddam Hussein's regime.
It found that Sevan helped steer oil contracts to a relative of Boutros-Ghali who ran oil firm African Middle East Petroleum.
The report has stopped short of saying any UN official had taken bribes or committed a crime but Volcker has cautioned that the investigation would continue.
Boutros-Ghali headed the United Nations from January 1992 until UN Secretary General Kofi Annan took over in 1997.
Annan has said UN officials would be disciplined and diplomatic immunity would be lifted if criminal acts were committed.
Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein it has emerged that the former Iraqi leader was selling oil illegally outside the scheme -- often with the knowledge of UN Security Council members -- and bribing a variety of officials around the world.
Saddam is reported to have skimmed at least eight billion dollars from illegal oil sales to other countries.
Boutros-Ghali was in Delhi for a meeting of the South Centre, an inter-governmental institution, lobbying to promote the interests of developing countries in the World Trade Organisation.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosted a lunch for Boutros-Ghali and pledged financial support for the South Centre which he heads.
02/11/2005 14:59 GMT - AFP