By Irwin Arieff
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The United Nations disclosed plans on Thursday to temporarily shift about 200 peacekeepers and 125 police officers to Ivory Coast from Liberia after the United States objected to reinforcements.
The groups to be transferred, once the U.N. Security Council consents, are a Nigerian mechanized infantry battalion and a Nepalese police unit, U.N. officials said.
About 7,000 U.N. peacekeepers and 700 international police officers, working with 4,000 French troops, are now trying to uphold a shaky peace in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, following a 2002 civil war that left the country split into a government-run south and a rebel-held north.
Annan told the Security Council in early January that the mission needed an additional 3,400 soldiers and 475 police officers in the run-up to long-delayed elections due to be held before the end of October.
A few weeks later, four days of riots targeting U.N. and French personnel and orchestrated by youth groups loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo, strengthened his case for the reinforcements, Annan said.
But with peacekeeping costs soaring and the U.S. budget running up huge deficits, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the United Nations should be trying "to keep the big picture in mind, and not simply be reacting minute by minute to events on the ground."
Without a desire for peace on all sides, no amount of peacekeepers would suffice, he argued.
So Annan, in a letter to the Security Council circulated at the United Nations on Thursday, said shifting troops from Liberia would help provide the needed additional security.
The redeployment would be for an initial three-month period, he said.
Peacekeepers were sent to Liberia in September 2003 to support an interim government after President Charles Taylor fled into exile in Nigeria, ending years of civil war aimed at toppling him.
The peacekeeping mission is now likely to be phased out following the inauguration last month of newly elected President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.