UNITED NATIONS, Sept 8: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday that recent terrorist attacks have complicated the situation between India and Pakistan, but expressed the hope that they would not derail the process of dialogue between them.

Asked whether he would ask the leaders of India and Pakistan coming to attend the UN General Assembly session in two weeks to meet and talk to each other, Annan expressed hope that both countries leaders would meet and continue the “dialogue”.

At a press conference, he noted that the leaders of both countries had expressed their desire to hold a dialogue and it was important that they continued to move in that direction.

Mr Annan pointed out whenever he had met the leaders of two nations, he had always impressed upon them the need to continue dialogue to resolve the issues among them.

Declaring the attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad a direct challenge to world security, he called for radical reforms in the United Nations and other institutions to cope with war, terrorism, poverty and human rights abuse.

In a millennium report, the secretary-general said the divisions over Iraq since the US-led invasion in March would not be easily overcome.

He said that war and other conflicts highlighted the problems of international legitimacy, new and more virulent forms of terrorism, the proliferation of non-conventional weapons and the spread of criminal networks.

Annan said he had written to 191 nations two weeks before the annual General Assembly ministerial session, asking them to come up with new ideas on fighting terrorism, weapons proliferation, poverty and promoting development as they had pledged in the 2000 UN Millennium Summit.

“The war in Iraq brought to the fore a host of questions of principle and practice that challenge the United Nations and the international community as a whole,” he said. “It is vitally important that the international community not allow the differences of the past months to persist and that it finds unity of purpose around a common security agenda.”

On weapons of mass destruction, Mr Annan noted there was no global comprehensive monitoring and enforcement system, even for nuclear inspections and too little effort by nuclear powers to “diminish the symbolic importance of weapons.

He also criticized the 191 member General Assembly for lacking priorities, the Security Council for being undemocratic, the UN Trusteeship Council for existing without real work and international financial institutions for making decisions without developing nations they were meant to serve.

On the General Assembly, he said its sheer size had produced an agenda crowded with overlapping items of interest to only a few, decisions taken that most nations ignore and “repetitive and sterile debates”.