By Michelle Nichols NEW YORK, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Australia asked the United Nations on Friday to take a bigger role in Iraq, particularly in helping to quell sectarian violence. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer made the request over lunch with new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York, echoing a call this week by U.S. President George W. Bush for an increased U.N. presence in Iraq. "We would like to see the United Nations become more active than it already is and would like to see the United Nations perhaps working to take some sort of initiative to assist with the process of reconciliation over and above what it's already doing," Downer told reporters. "The United Nations has a degree of neutrality that individual governments can't have and I understand that it has very good linkages in Iraq to most factions -- Sunni and Shi'ite and Kurd," he said. Australia, a close ally of the United States, was one of the first nations to commit troops to the war in Iraq and maintains about 1,400 troops in and around the country to provide security and help train Iraq's new defense forces. Earlier this month, Bush outlined a fresh plan to send an extra 21,500 troops to fight a war that has now lasted nearly four years. Australia said it supports the plan, but will not send more troops. "It is the only practical plan for forward movement in Iraq and I hoped the United Nations would do everything it could to play a role with assisting with the process of reconciliation," Downer said. Ban, who visited Washington this week, said on Wednesday that he had told Bush the United Nations "will continue, wherever and whenever we can, to increase our presence there, but that will largely be constrained by security concerns." Downer declined to say what Ban said in response to his request. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan withdrew the U.N's international staff from Iraq in 2003 following two attacks on U.N. offices in Baghdad. The first attack in August 2003 killed 22 people, including Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello, head of the mission. U.N. political staff, now headed by Pakistani Ashraf Qazi, returned a year later but in far lower numbers. U.N. officials helped Iraq draft a new constitution and prepare for elections.
