U.N. to expand its role in Iraq

The U.N. is ready to expand its role in Iraq to mediate between rival sects, help build political participation and increase humanitarian help, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Saturday.

“The U.N. stands ready to broaden its activity in support of the people and government of Iraq,” he said in a meeting co-chaired by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and attended by senior officials from Iraq, the United States, Britain and many of Iraq’s neighbors. “This is a responsibility I take very seriously.”

Ban announced that the United Nations would increase its staff in Iraq and open a “support office” in Baghdad to facilitate dialogue among groups that have traditionally not spoken directly to one another, such as some insurgent groups, religious sects and the government.

“It is my belief that security and stability in Iraq will not be obtained through military means alone,” Ban said. “There needs to be dialogue, national reconciliation and reduced sectarian tensions.”

Maliki pledged that the Iraqi government would protect U.N. workers. “The security situation . . . has begun to develop tremendously, and the Baghdad of today is different from the Baghdad of yesterday,” he said.

Security concerns have been the U.N.’s main obstacle to reestablishing a significant presence in Iraq. The U.N. had been instrumental in helping Iraq create an interim government, prepare a constitution and conduct elections.

In 2003, a suicide bomb attack on the U.N.’s Baghdad headquarters killed 22 staff members, leading the U.N. to base most of its staff for Iraq in Kuwait and Jordan. Ban said the U.N. has 65 staff members in the country -- those in Baghdad are based in the fortified Green Zone -- and he would add personnel soon in Irbil, in the north, and Basra, in the south. The U.N. withdrew its Basra staff this year when Britain reduced its forces.

In response to a question about a videotape that reportedly shows that private security guards working for Blackwater USA fired without provocation on civilians, Maliki said only that investigators were looking into it.

“We have asked the Americans to deal with the investigation through an investigative committee to see whether there is a video of that incident,” he said.

A senior Iraqi official in Baghdad, Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said Saturday that a videotape showed that the security guards protecting U.S. diplomats fired first in the Sept. 16 incident, in which 11 people were killed, the Associated Press reported, and said that the company had been implicated in six other incidents in the last seven months.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Maliki met face-to-face at the U.N. for the first time since the incident. On Friday, Rice announced a security review to examine the rules of engagement followed by security contractors and their immunity from prosecution by Iraqi and U.S. military courts.

The meeting also focused on the dire humanitarian situation in Iraq, and the flood of refugees into neighboring nations.

The 4 million refugees and internally displaced people are straining the resources of bordering countries, which asked the U.N. for more help. In Iraq, it is estimated that more than 8 million people -- one-third of the population -- are in need of emergency assistance.

Ban also urged leaders to support the Iraq Compact, which he inaugurated in May to encourage investment in the country to help it rebuild.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that the economic challenges could not be ignored, but that security made it difficult to do more than forgive Iraq’s debt at the moment.

“Basic public services are failing, and reconstruction is at a standstill -- a paradoxical situation for a country that has the world’s second-largest proven oil fields,” he said in the meeting, according to his speaking notes.

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maggie.farley@latimes.com