Iraq has accused anew the United States and Britain of blocking five billion dollars worth of contracts concluded within the framework of the UN-administered oil-for-food programme, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The accusation was levelled by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri during a meeting late Tuesday with the newly-appointed UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, Ramiro Armando de Oliveira Lopes da Silva, the ministry said in the statement.

"US and British interventions have blocked the programme and led to the blockage of more than 2,000 contracts of humanitarian products with a value of more than five billion dollars," Sabri said.

The UN Office of the Iraq Programme said Tuesday, however, that it had placed on hold 1,480 contracts for the purchase of various humanitarian supplies and equipment worth 4.6 billion dollars.

The minister said Washington and London had played a "serious" role in "imposing the retroactive oil pricing mechanism."

"The revenues from the programme have plunged as a result," Sabri said, adding that this policy "stops the Iraqi people from profiting from their resources to acquire essential goods."

Last year, Britain and the United States forced a tougher pricing policy on to the Security Council's sanctions committee in response to what they said were attempts by Iraq to charge an illegal premium on its crude.

The price, which was previously determined at the start of each month by the oil overseers in consultation with the Iraqi oil ministry, is now set retroactively by the committee.

The "oil-for food" programme, introduced in 1996, allows Iraq to sell crude under UN supervision to meet the humanitarian needs of its people, who have been hard hit by the sanctions imposed on the country since Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Iraq says the programme does not meet its 22-million population's most basic needs and should not be a substitute for lifting the UN embargo.

It regularly accuses US and British representatives on the sanctions committee of blocking contracts for imports into Iraq.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri.