United Nations: Appreciating Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's peace initiative, United Nations Secretary-general Kofi Annan has hoped that both India and Pakistan would be able to resolve all issues through negotiations.

Annan expressed his appreciation on June 10 during a forty-minute meeting with External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha who explained to the Secretary-general the salient points of the initiative aimed at improving relations with Pakistan.

During the wide-ranging discussions, Sinha stressed on the need for the United Nations to ensure that contracts under Iraq's 'oil-for-food' programme signed before the United States military action are honoured. India is among the countries, which were in the process of executing the contracts signed by the Saddam Hussein government and approved by the United Nations when the war broke out.

The programme, now being implemented by the United Nations, is to be phased within six months and money remaining in "oil for food" programme would be transferred to the Iraq Development Fund which would be run by the United States-led coalition.

PTI