The United Nations has rejected a US senator's call for the resignation of secretary general Kofi Annan.
Senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of five US congressional investigations into the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, wrote in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that Mr Annan should step down because "the most extensive fraud in the history of the UN occurred on his watch".
The conservative Minnesota Republican joined several US newspapers and columnists in urging that Mr Annan be replaced.
A US State Department spokesmanbacked the congressional investigations but sidestepped the issue of Mr Annan 's resignation.
Two weeks ago, Mr Coleman's Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations said it had uncovered evidence that Saddam Hussein's government raised more than £11.8 billion sterling in illegal revenue by subverting UN sanctions against Iraq, including the oil-for-food programme.
On Monday, Mr Annan said he was "very disappointed and surprised" that his son, Kojo, received payments until February from a firm that had a contract with the programme.
The Swiss-based firm Cotecna Inspection said he was paid $1,388 a month to prevent him for working for any competitors in Africa after he left the company at the end of 1998.
Mr Annan said he understood "the perception problem for the UN, or the perception of conflict of interests and wrongdoing". But he reiterated that he had never been involved in granting contracts, to Cotecna or anyone else.
Outside the United States, Mr Annan appears to retain wide support among the 191 UN member states that elected him to a second five-year term in 2001.
Russia, Britain, Chile, Spain and other nations on the UN Security Council have strongly backed Mr Annan in recent days, as did non-council members. The 54 African nations sent a letter of support.
But the allegations of corruption in the oil-for-food programme, which first surfaced in January, have escalated, embarrassing Mr Annan personally.
AP