(Reuters) - Norway has complained to the U.N. Security
Council that accusations by U.N. experts that Oslo's assistance to Somalia was
a cover to promote the commercial interests of Norwegian oil companies were
"completely unfounded and simply wrong."
The U.N. Monitoring Group's annual report to the Security
Council's sanctions committee on Somalia and Eritrea suggested Norway's
development assistance to Somalia could be used "as a cover for its commercial
interests there."
In a letter to the Security Council, dated Monday, Charge
d'Affaires of Norway's U.N. mission Knut Langeland rejected those allegations.
"Let me reassure you that these allegations are
completely unfounded and simply wrong," he wrote. "To imply that the
Norwegian government's assistance to Somalia may be 'a cover for commercial
interests' is therefore totally unfounded."
Somalia is struggling to rebuild after decades of
conflict and a U.N.-backed African Union peacekeeping force is trying to drive
out al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebel group al Shabaab. Piracy off the Somali
coast is also a problem.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols)
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