UN chief Kofi Annan's special representative in Liberia, Jacques Klein, yesterday said he would recommend the immediate lifting of UN sanctions imposed on the regime of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

Klein told reporters that the sanctions, which included an arms embargo and had been imposed on Taylor's administration since 2001, should be lifted to allow the country to rebuild after years of bitter fighting.

"The process of healing in Liberia must begin now," he said.

"I will try to go back to the UN (Security Council) and get them lifted as quickly as possible," he said.

But he expressed concern that the number of west African Ecomil peacekeepers deployed here for little over a week were woefully inadequate for the task ahead.

"To be candid, we don't have the amount of troops we need. We have on the ground some 770 Nigerian soldiers who are almost overwhelmed by the task they have been asked to do," he said.

The eventual number of peacekeepers is estimated to go up to between 3 000 and 5 000 but Klein said there was a "pressing need to install a permanent task force".

He said that a UN assessment team would be brought in next week to look at the situation on the ground and report to the UN Security Council.

Klein stressed that Liberia, devastated by 14 years of almost constant conflict, should now try to rebuild as soon as possible.

"All Liberians have a role to play. Guns must be put aside. This message must be understood on both sides," he added.

The UN Security Council in May extended the two-year-old sanctions on Liberia for another 12 months.

The sanctions also include a ban on trade in rough diamonds and restrictions on air travel by senior Liberian government and military officials and their wives.

Resolution 1478, adopted unanimously by the 15 UN Security Council members in May, also extended the sanctions to include a ban on exports of unsawn timber, a prime source of revenue for the Taylor government.

The sanctions were originally imposed in 2001 to force Taylor's erstwhile government to stop its support for the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone.

They were renewed a first time on May 5, 2002.

The RUF gained notoriety for its brutality in the civil war in Sierra Leone, which was formally declared ended in January last year.

Taylor, who on Monday stepped down as the Liberian president and fled into exile in Nigeria, had strenuously denied allegations that he had funded and armed the RUF rebels in return for the so-called "blood diamonds" they mined.

Klein also said that Taylor, a brutal warlord who has been indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone, could do great damage to the ongoing peace efforts from exile.

"My concern is actually that Taylor with a cellphone is still a government in exile," he said, adding that the former president should abide by the conditions imposed by Nigeria, which offered him asylum, and remain completely apolitical. – Sapa-AFP.