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Iraq Expels UN Employees for Security Violations
Iraq has expelled five employees working for the United Nations oil-for-food program for allegedly harming its national security, Iraqi television reported on Wednesday.
The five people, four Nigerians and a Bosnian, engaged in activities violating Iraq's security and incompatible with their mission in Iraq, the television quoted as saying a Foreign Ministry official.
They have been declared "persona non grata" and were demanded to leave Iraq within 72 hours, and they are forbidden from visiting Iraq again in the future, the official said, on customary condition of anonymity.
Three of them left Baghdad on Tuesday and the two others have left before Iraq's expulsion, he added.
Iraq has been under sweeping U.N. economic sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It has repeatedly blasted the sanctions regime and the U.N. oil-for-food program, which it says has failed to meet Iraq's humanitarian needs.
The U.N. humanitarian deal, which was launched in 1996 as an exception to the trade embargo, allows Iraq to sell oil in return for U.N.-monitored imports of food, medicine and other basic needs to ease the sufferings of the Iraqi people.
In January, Iraq accused a U.N. official from Kenya of trying to smuggle "illegal items" into Iraq and demanded his withdrawal.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said at that time "many such incidents have proven that U.N. employees are misusing their status to do things they know very will violate Iraqi laws."
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