THE United Nations has withdrawn its staff from the Olympic torch run in North Korea amid concerns that the relay will be used as a propaganda stunt.

The decision followed a heated internal debate among foreign donors, who face a constant battle with Kim Jong-il’s government in their efforts to get food and aid to impoverished people.

It is believed to be the first acknowledgment by the world body that the Olympic torch relay is a political event that can be exploited by unscrupulous governments, diplomats said.

“It was unconscionable,” said a UN official who was briefed on the arguments.

North Korea is frequently listed among the world’s worst offenders against human rights.

It maintains labour camps in the remote north of the country, publicly executes dissidents and practises racially motivated infanticide on babies born to refugees who have been sent back from China.

In recent weeks North Korea has test-fired missiles, while stalling international negotiations over its nuclear weapons, and unleashed belligerent rhetoric against the new president of South Korea.

The withdrawal is a rebuke to the regime and an embarrassment to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which invited the UN to join the global relay.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) confirmed the withdrawal and said it had changed its mind about the torch run.

“Unicef originally decided to participate in the Pyongyang leg of the Olympic torch run in response to a request from, and as a demonstration of support for, the International Olympic Movement,” said Christopher de Bono, a spokesman for the organisation.

“However, we are no longer convinced that Unicef’s participation in the run will support the aim of raising awareness of the situation of children in the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of, or North, Korea] and elsewhere,” he said.

“Unicef has decided, in concert with other UN family entities, to withdraw from the Pyongyang relay.”

The Unicef statement was made in response to an inquiry by The Sunday Times that raised the concerns of the foreign aid community in the capital.

“There ought to be an inquest into this,” said a diplomat who follows North Korean affairs.

“In China’s case the IOC made the argument that the Games would help reform, although that’s looking threadbare. But North Korea? What were they thinking?”

The torch is due to be carried through the broad boulevards of Pyongyang on April 28.

The pull-out was welcomed by human rights campaigners in South Korea.

Times Recommends

• Robert McNamara dies aged 93
• German soldiers earn new ‘Iron Cross’
• Great Barrier Reef 'gone within 20 years'