UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31: Iraq’s controversial chairmanship of an international conference on disarmament will be moved up two months, to March, after Iran switched places, a UN spokeswoman said on Friday.

In an ironical turn of events, Iraq will take over the chairmanship of the Geneva-based commission that negotiates disarmament treaties at a time when it could be fighting a war against a US-led force insisting it give up its weapons of mass destruction. Chairmen rotate in alphabetical order.

UN spokeswoman Hua Jiang announced that Iran, in a letter to the 66-nation commission, gave up its chairmanship to Iraq for March 17 to March 28 and then, after a recess, from May 12 to May 25. Iraq previously had been scheduled to lead the commission from May 26 to June 27.

“No reason was given,” she said, adding that countries in the past had switched places. Iranian envoys were not available for comment.

Iraq’s chairmanship would be the first since it joined the UN-funded conference in June 1986 — during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. Others leading the session, which began on Jan. 21, are Indonesia, Ireland and Israel as well as Iran.

But Iraq is unlikely to be able to influence the conference’s work because members have been deadlocked on a programme of work since 1999. The new March date might, however, give Iraq another platform for expressing its opposition to a possible US attack, which may take place that month.

On Thursday, a leading member of the US House of Representatives, protested Iraq’s chairmanship, regardless of the date, in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republicans who chairs the House International Relations Committee, asked Powell to avert the “very disquieting prospect” of Iraq taking over the forum.—Reuters