UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called the British ambassador to a meeting yesterday after his spokesman said he wanted a fuller explanation of alleged British bugging of his office.
The meeting, set on Wednesday, falls a week after Clare Short, Britain's former international development secretary, disclosed that British intelligence agents spied on Annan ahead of the US-led invasion of Iraq last March.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard responded at the time by saying the bugging, if true, violated international law and should immediately be stopped.
Eckhard later added, "I think it's probably safe to say that he would like a fuller explanation," when asked if Annan was waiting for the British government to contact him to offer an explanation or assurances there would be no more spying.
Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry had telephoned Annan, on behalf of Prime Minister Tony Blair, immediately after the bugging allegations became public. But diplomatic sources said their initial conversation had not directly addressed the bugging issue.
The world body was clearly startled by Short's claims as she was a high-ranking official at the time the alleged bugging took place. Short resigned from the government after the war.
Short told BBC radio she had read some of the transcripts of the bugging of Annan's office, on the 38th floor of the UN complex in Manhattan facing the East River.
"In the case of Kofi's office, it was being done for some time," she said.
A British translator had earlier leaked a top-secret US document to the media seeking London's help in bugging UN Security Council members in the run-up to the Iraq war.
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