U.N. postal body says cancelled congress in Kenya

BERNE (Reuters) - The United Nations' Universal Postal Union (UPU) said on Monday it had decided not to hold its four-yearly Congress in Kenya later this year because of the security situation in the country.

The three-week long gathering attended by some 1,500 delegates from 191 countries which was to have been held from August 13 to September 3 in Nairobi, will be switched to Geneva, and will take place from mid-July to early August.

A dispute over December presidential elections has triggered a wave of violence in Kenya that killed more than 1,000 people and uprooted 300,000. The violence has subsided in recent days but Kenya's image as a stable country has been badly damaged.

"The situation in Kenya currently prevents the UPU International Bureau to work effectively with Kenya in organizecontinuing to organise a Congress in Nairobi," an announcement from UPU headquarters in the Swiss capital said.

As a United Nations body, the UPU had to follow U.N. security rules which have currently suspended all non-essential missions to Kenya, the announcement added.

The decision was taken despite a plea from Kenya's Minister of Information and Communication Samuel Poghisio to the UPU's governing Council of Administration in Berne not to move the Congress, who argued that the situation had stabilized in his country.

But the UPU announcement said the Council also recommended that Kenya still chair the Geneva meeting and hold the Council chairmanship from 2009 to 2012. It said Nairobi would be promoted as the venue for a UPU conference in 2010.

The UPU, or Universal Postal Union, is the oldest U.N. agency, having been set up in 1874 in Berne and is the primary international forum for cooperation and rule-setting between post administrations around the globe.

(Reporting by Robert Evans; Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Sami Aboudi)