'UN should re-establish its neutrality'

A new division along the lines of pro- and anti-US after September 11, 2001 has created a very dangerous situation for the UN to operate, said Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP administrator, at a commemorative function at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel.

"It has sucked the oxygen out of the UN space required to operate neutrally," he said.

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The UN system in Bangladesh organised the programme to mark one year of the bombing of the UN office in Baghdad.

The UN has found itself in a position squeezed between US condemnation of its reluctance to invade Iraq and the Arab-Muslim perception that sees the UN as a western organisation and their condemnation of inconsistent UN resolutions, said the UNDP administrator.

Speaking as special guest, Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan said the first major challenge facing the UN is to regain the trust and confidence of the people of Iraq.

On the bomb attack on the UN office in Iraq, he said Bangladesh joined the international community in condemning the 'cowardly act'.

The bombing killed 22 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the secretary general's special representative in Iraq.

Vieira de Mello had worked as a field officer in Bangladesh immediately after the independence, while Martha Teas, another victim of the bomb blast, had worked with the World Food Programme in Dhaka.