LONDON, Feb 13 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan insisted in an interview broadcast on Sunday that his resignation was not "on the cards" despite an escalating scandal over the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
"Resignation is not on the cards for me at the moment," Annan told the BBC in an interview filmed during a trip to London earlier in the week.
The final conclusion of an ongoing investigation into the oil-for-food scheme would help the public to understand its complexities, the UN chief said.
From 1996 to 2003, the 64-billion-dollar programme was intended to help Iraqis cope with international sanctions imposed over Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, which sparked the 1990-1991 Gulf War.
But Annan admitted that concessions had been made due to the difficulties in ensuring the cooperation of the toppled regime.
"Saddam had resisted the scheme for several years and there was concern that if something was not done then the Iraqi population will starve and some of these concessions were the price they had to pay to get the scheme off the ground," he told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost show.
"In retrospect one may criticize it but at the time because of the urgency and the needs of the Iraqi people some concessions were made."
At the same time, Annan said the bulk of the problems uncovered were due to oil smuggling, which the UN had nothing to do with, but he reiterated a pledge to lift the diplomatic immunity of any UN official fingered in the affair.
The oil-for-food inquiry found earlier this month that it had suffered from lax UN controls. An interim report said that Benon Sevan, who headed the UN program, obtained allocations of oil from Saddam Hussein's regime.
Pressed again as to whether he would consider resigning if he felt such a move would help to unite UN member states, Annan rejected the notion.
"The interest of the organisation comes first, it is not a question of the individual and I think at this stage the member states who understand the nature of the programme are not pressing along the lines that you indicate," he said.
02/13/2005 11:13 GMT - AFP