Annan stands by his deputy remarks on US

United Nations, June 8 : UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has spurned an American demand that he take his deputy to task for accusing the United States of relying on the United Nations but failing to defend it against domestic critics.

The remarks by Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch evoked sharp criticism from the US, with Washington's envoy John Bolton describing them as ''a very very grave mistake,'' falling short of demanding a resignation by the UN Deputy chief.

''Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations,'' Mr Bolton told reporters yesterday after a meeting with Mr Annan.

He cautioned that such remarks from a top UN official would do no good to the world body.

''My hope is he looks at the potential adverse effects that these intemperate remarks would have on the organisation and repudiate it,'' the US envoy said.

However, unperturbed by the US criticism, a spokesman for the UN Chief said, ''The secretary-general stands by the statements made by his deputy.'' ''So there is no question of any action to be taken against the deputy secretary-general,'' chief UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Mr Malloch Brown, in a speech to a conference on 'Power and Superpower' in New York on Tuesday has said, ''A moment of truth is coming since the world's challenges are growing but the UN's ability to respond is being weakened without US leadership.

''The prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable. You will lose the UN one way or the other,'' Mr Brown had said.

In what described by him a ''sincere critique,'' the Deputy UN chief said the US cannot pursue a ''go it alone'' approach while dealing with diverse problems ranging from the threat of bird flu to the situation in violence-wrecked Darfur, Sudan and called for a greater US engagement with the world body.

Citing the issue of human rights, Mr Brown said, ''Today, when the human rights machinery was renewed with the formation of a Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Commission on Human Rights, and the US chose to stay on the sidelines, the loss was everybody's.'' Underlining the strained relations between the superpower and the world body, Mr Brown said, ''In recent years, the enormously divisive issue of Iraq and the big stick of financial withholding have come to define an unhappy marriage.'' Referring to the UN reforms, especially about expansion of the security council, Mr Brown said, ''Five, veto-wielding permanent members who happen to be the victors in a war fought 60 years ago, cannot be seen as representative of today's world.'' Supporting the move by the G4 in this regard, he stated, the so-called G-4 of Security Council aspirants -- Japan, India, Brazil and Germany -- contribute twice as much as the P-4, the four permanent members (excluding the US).

The deputy secretary-general said that when the United States does champion the ''right issues like management reform,'' Washington provokes more suspicion than support. He recalled how last December, largely at US insistence, instead of a normal two-year budget, member states approved only six months' worth of expenditure.

He cited the prevailing ''perception among many otherwise quite moderate countries that anything the US supports must have a secret agenda aimed at either subordinating multilateral processes to Washington's ends or weakening the institutions, and therefore, put crudely, should be opposed.'' The interdependence, he added, is mutual. ''The UN needs its first parent, the US, every bit as much if it is to deploy credibly in one of the world's nastiest neighbourhoods.''

UNI