WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department refused Wednesday to comment on calls for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign because of the oil-for-food scandal.
"When the facts are determined, that is the time to determine what wrongdoing was done and what remedial steps needed to be taken," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said.
The comments follow an opinion piece in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal in which Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, called for Annan's resignation. The subcommittee is investigating the oil-for-food program in sanctions-era Iraq.
"The decision to call for Mr. Annan's resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch," Coleman wrote.
Ereli called Annan a "valued interlocutor," but said the issue was not the secretary-general, but rather the corruption in the program. The oil-for-food program is also being investigated by an independent body led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Voelker.
