BAGHDAD, Jan 22 (AFP) - 14h33 - The director of Iraq's "oil-for-food" program with the United Nations, Benon Sevan, has gone to Iraqi Kurdistan for a week-long visit to follow up the implementation of the program, a UN source said Tuesday.
Sevan, who is accompanied by UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Tun Myat, will discuss the implementation of the program with local Kurdish officials and UN agencies, the source said.

The Western-protected Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq has been off limits to the central government since the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait.

Sevan started a visit to Iraq on January 14 to discuss with Iraqi officials ways of improving the implementation of the oil-for-food program.

The arrangement was established in December 1996 to soften the impact of UN sanctions imposed on Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait by allowing Baghdad to export crude under UN supervision and to use part of the revenue to import food, medicine and other necessities.

Sevan earlier rang alarm bells at the number of contracts blocked by the UN sanctions committee, which oversees the program.

In a January 8 letter to the committee, he said a total of 1,854 contracts were now on hold, worth a total 4.956 billion dollars. They included orders for 4.28 billion dollars worth of humanitarian supplies and for 676 million dollars worth of oil industry equipment.

Almost all the holds applied to areas of southern and central Iraq under the control of President Saddam Hussein's government. Only two were for imports to the northern Kurdish region where goods are distributed by UN agencies.

Baghdad regularly accuses US and British representatives on the sanctions committee of blocking contracts for imports into Iraq, a charge repeated by Foreign Minister Naji Sabri on Monday.