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NEW DELHI, Nov 5 (AFP) Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh has rejected opposition demands that he quit his post after allegations that he secretly benefited from deals linked to the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

In an interview broadcast by an Indian television channel, Singh said: "Why should I (resign) ...the (opposition) BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) can't decide who the foreign minister of India will be." Singh said he enjoyed the full confidence of his Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and would not quit.

"I am told that I am doing a good job so do you expect me to go to the prime minister and say that since I am doing a good job I am putting in my papers," he told New Delhi Television, or NDTV.

Pressure has mounted on Singh to quit since October 27, when a report by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, named him as a non-contractual beneficiary of four million barrels of Iraqi oil allotted to a firm named Masefield AG.

The Volcker report said it found that Saddam Hussein's regime manipulated the programme to extract about 1.8 billion dollars in surcharges and bribes, while an inept UN headquarters failed to exert administrative control.

The ruling Congress party, India's oldest political entity, is also listed as a beneficiary of a separate allotment of four million barrels of oil as part of the transactions.

Smarting under opposition demands for Singh's scalp, the Congress has said it was mailing a "comprehensive legal notice" to the United Nations to demand a full disclosure of the Volcker report. In his interview, Singh said his name and that of the Congress party were not mentioned in the main body of the Volcker report but in the annexures.

"They (annexures) have no validity," Singh said adding they could have been "manufactured" by the present government in Iraq which had "no international credibility".

"The (Volcker) report has been dismissed by the foreign minister of Russia, it has been dismissed by the interior minister of France, it has been dismissed by the government of South Africa and I am dismissing it here on behalf of the Congress party and as the foreign minister of India," Singh said.

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