Iraq has expelled five UN employees of the oil-for-food programme for violating national security, declaring them personae non grata, said a foreign ministry official yesterday.
"We have informed the United Nations that these five employees undertook activities that harmed Iraqi national security and did not correspond to their mission as international employees," he said.
He did not elaborate on the activities and neither did the UN. The five were given 72 hours to leave Iraq and are forbidden to return.
The UN acted quickly and pulled out the five employees - four Nigerians and a Bosnian.
The oil-for-food programme employs about 400 international staff and 1,300 locals in Baghdad and about 60 in New York.
Iraq argues that the programme - launched to allow Baghdad to export oil in exchange for food and other essentials, such as medicine - does not meet the 22 million-strong population's most basic needs.
Seventy-two per cent of Iraq's oil revenues go to fund the humanitarian programme - 59 per cent for the centre and south of Iraq, and 13 per cent for the country's three northern governorates of Arbil, Suleimaniyeh and Dahuk, which have since 1991 been controlled by rival Kurdish factions in defiance of Baghdad.
A quarter of the proceeds go towards a compensation fund for the damage caused by the Gulf War, while the remaining 3 per cent covers UN costs for administering the programme and the stalled UN weapons inspection programme.
In January, Iraq asked the UN to dismiss Mr Joseph Jaluda, a Kenyan officer with the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission , for smuggling prohibited substances across the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border hidden in a UNIKOM vehicle.
In February, Iraq accused UN personnel of undermining its sovereignty. The regime claimed UN employees were delivering letters from US officials to the rebel Kurd leader, Mr Jalal Talabani.