UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, after a rough 2004, sees 2005 as a year of opportunity for peace from Afghanistan and Iraq to Congo and Sudan.
At his annual year end news conference at U.N. World Headquarters in New York Tuesday, he admitted allegations of corruption and mismanagement surrounding the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program had "cast a shadow" over an operation that brought relief to millions of Iraqis.
"We must find out the truth as quickly as possible," he said, promising to make public when it is released in January an interim report by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who is heading an independent investigation into the multibillion-dollar oil-for-food humanitarian operation, which ended last year.
Looking at the year ahead, he saw opportunity to build a framework for a more secure world based on the recommendations of a blue-ribbon commission that looked at emerging international threats and ways to deal with them and, turning aside questions whether he would consider resigning in face of the oil-for-food allegations said he looked forward to working on reform.
