United Nations: The United Nations has said that it "respected" the nomination of Iyad Allawi as the new Iraqi Prime Minister and promised to work closely with him.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan also respected the decision and "respect" had been a "carefully chosen word" chief United Nations spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

The announcement by US appointed Iraqi Governing Council that Allawi has been appointed the Prime Minister of the interim Government, which is to take over from Coalition Provisional Authority, reportedly surprised the UN and the world body's discomfiture was clear as its spokesmen scrambled to explain the development.

Under the arrangement already announced, UN's top envoy in Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi was expected to make the decision known during a briefing to the Security Council after he had finalized the whole Government including one President and two Vice Presidents.

But the Governing Council upstaged Brahimi and Eckhard made the world body's unhappiness clear when he told the media that, "It's not how we had expected it to happen."

There were conflicting reactions when Brahimi's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi "welcomed" the decision but at the United Nations headquarters, Eckhard refused to go beyond his comments that Brahimi "respected the decision and is prepared work with this person on selection of the other posts of the interim Government".