The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, met today with the British Ambassador to the UN, Emyr Jones Parry, in search of an explanation of alleged British bugging of his office.
"The secretary-general asked to see the ambassador ... and that meeting has now taken place," said United Nations chief spokesman Fred Eckhard tonight, adding he would have nothing more to say on what happened.
Eckhard said Annan was awaiting a fuller explanation of charges that British intelligence spied on him ahead of the US-led invasion of Iraq last March.
The former British international development secretary, Clare Short, said last week that British agents had spied on the UN leader. Officials of the world body said the bugging, if true, violated international law and should immediately be stopped.
Jones Parry had telephoned Annan, on behalf of Tony Blair, immediately after the bugging allegations became public. But diplomatic sources said their initial conversation had not directly addressed the bugging issue.
The UN was clearly stunned by Short's claims as she was a high-ranking official when the alleged bugging took place.
Short told BBC radio she had read some of the transcripts of the bugging of Annan's office, on the 38th floor of the UN complex in Manhattan facing the East River. "In the case of Kofi's office, it was being done for some time," she said.
A British translator earlier leaked a top-secret US document to the media seeking London's help in bugging UN Security Council members in the run-up to the Iraq war.