UN chief shaken by Baghdad explosion

Ban Ki-moon, who flew into Baghdad today, ducked behind the podium when the impact shook the building as he addressed reporters alongside Nuri al-Maliki in the Iraqi prime minister's office inside Baghdad's fortified green zone.

The rocket landed around 50 metres away and left a one-metre crater, journalists who went out to investigate said.

Mr al-Maliki's security staff began to move Mr Moon away, but he shook off their attentions, saying: "Nothing's wrong". The press conference then continued, even as small pieces of debris came down from the ceiling.

Mr Ban, the former South Korean foreign minister who took over from Kofi Annan as the secretary general in January, is making his first visit to Iraq on the unannounced one-day visit.

His visit came as a senior Iraqi official said the country's government was holding talks with Sunni insurgent groups in an attempt to persuade them to lay down their arms.

Saad Yousif al-Muttalibi, of the Ministry of National Dialogue and Reconciliation, said the talks were initiated at the request of the insurgents, and had been taking place both inside and outside Iraq over the past three months.

He refused to identify the groups involved, but said they did not include al-Qaida in Iraq or Saddam Hussein loyalists.

Members of the former president's Ba'ath party did, however, take part, he added.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2039940,00.html