The new US ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday that he will seek to increase the world body's involvement in Iraq.

Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters after attending a Security Council consultation on Somalia that one of his priorities will be to "increase UN engagement to improve the situation in Iraq."

"The United Nations can do a lot, a lot is at stake in Iraq," he noted.

"What happens in Iraq is certainly important for the Iraqis but it is also important for the future of the region," he said. "And the future of the region of the broader Middle East in my judgment is the defining challenge of our time."

Citing the Iraq international compact, an joint initiative of the UN and the Iraqi government, as an example, the ambassador said the UN is already playing "an important role" in Iraq.

The compact is to be launched by UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Iraqi Prime Minister Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki early next month in Sharm el-Sheikh of Egypt.

"So already the UN is doing important things for Iraq and I believe there is room to do more and I'll be discussing that with my colleagues and with the secretary-general," he said.

Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Iraq, was named by US President George W. Bush to the UN post, succeeding John Bolton, who resigned last December.

(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2007)