Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh yesterday said Baghdad will ask some 400 UN workers who monitor the oil-for-food programme to leave, but he did not give a date. The latest phase of the programme, which allows Iraq to sell oil in return for needed supplies, expires in May.

Saleh's announcement was the latest Iraqi response to the four-day US and British bombing campaign that ended on December 19.

United Nations officials yesterday declined to comment on Iraq's declaration.

Baghdad's first response to the air strikes was to ban the inspectors from returning to Iraq. On Saturday, Iraq said it would fire on US and British warplanes patrolling skies over northern and southern Iraq.

State-run Iraqi newspapers today hailed the support the country received a day earlier from Arab legislators in Amman,Jordan, where delegations from 16 members of the Arab Parliamentary Union's 19 member states condemned the air strikes as ``unjust US-British aggression'' and urged their governments to work toward lifting the UN sanctions.

Their recommendation, however, fell short of Iraq's demand that Arab countries begin circumventing the sanctions.

The oil-for-food programme was launched in December 1996 to bring crucial supplies such as flour, lentils, rice, sugar and medicine to families struggling under sanctions. It is generally extended every six months.

Though Iraq desperately needs the goods, it long has feared the programme makes it easier for the world to allow the sanctions to continue.

``Iraq refuses the continuation of this project and demands the lifting of sanctions,'' Saleh said. ``This means the ouster of UN teams which supervise it.''