NEW YORK, April 12: Baghdad’s ambassador to the United Nations Mohammed Aldouri left for Paris on Friday, saying: “I cannot live in a country which has invaded Iraq and is killing and destroying whatever it wants.”

Mr Aldouri, who was the first Iraqi official to concede that the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein had fallen, told reporters that he was going to Paris and then to Damascus to look into his family’s whereabouts.

“I am leaving this country to see my family, to see my people,” he said in a joint interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, broadcast on Friday.

“When this occupation ends ... I will be the first to enter my country as a free country,” Mr Aldouri said.

He said: “I am leaving because I don’t think I can work in a country that is invading Iraq, destroying, killing and demolishing whatever it wants.”

His interview was partly carried by BBC world service in which he wept openly. He said: “It is a country that occupies Iraq from the north to the south, from the east to the west. I don’t think this occupying country will allow me enough freedom to work at the United Nations.”

Mr Aldouri said he would be under pressure if he stayed, and preferred to withdraw “with dignity and respect”. He complained several weeks ago to the UN of being followed and harassed by police and other US authorities.

Besieged by television cameras and photographers, Mr Aldouri declared on Wednesday “the game is over.”

On Thursday, he saw UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and told reporters “Everything is over. There is no government that I represent.”

Mr Aldouri, who was a Baghdad University law professor for 30 years and a diplomat for four years, said he hoped his country would be on the path to democracy “without any obstructions and restrictions.”

He said: “I would like to find our country free as America has promised.”

One week into the US-led invasion of Iraq, Mr Aldouri blasted the United States for attacking his country and for killing innocent women and children which prompted the US Ambassador John Negroponte to walk out of the UN Security Council chambers.

Nevertheless, he established cordial ties with many delegates and diplomats who remember him fondly. On Thursday, he was seen embracing Pakistan’s Ambassador Munir Akram while talking to envoys of the Arab world.

British Ambassador to UN Jeremy Greenstock, when asked to comment on Mr Aldouri’s remarks, said: “He is a decent man. I hope he finds a decent life, representing a decent government, he must wonder what his situation is now and I sympathize with him.”