United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon says Saudi Arabia exerted "unacceptable" undue pressure on the world body after a UN report blacklisted a Saudi-led military coalition for killing children in Yemen.
Riyadh had threatened to cut its funding of UN programs in response to the blacklisting last week and suggested a fatwa - an Islamic legal opinion - could be placed on the world body, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
The UN announced on Monday it had removed the coalition from its annual child rights blacklist pending a joint review by the organisation and the coalition of child deaths and injuries during the year-long war in Yemen.
Ban described the decision as one of his most painful and difficult and said millions of other children likely would suffer if funding for UN programs was cut off.
"Children already at risk in Palestine, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and so many other places would fall further into despair," he told reporters. "It is unacceptable for member states to exert undue pressure."
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Ban did not specifically say the Saudis had threatened to cut off funding.
Saudi UN ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi also reiterated his denials that Riyadh threatened Ban over the blacklist.
"It is not in our style, it is not in our genes, it is not in our culture to use threats and intimidation. We have the greatest respect for the United Nations institution," Mouallimi told reporters shortly after Ban spoke.
Diplomatic sources said Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had called UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman several times to complain about the report, which names states and armed groups accused of violating the rights of children during conflicts.
Mouallimi then met with Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson on Monday.
The UN said Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh also contacted Ban's office to protest the listing of the coalition. Diplomats said Egypt, Kuwait and Qatar did likewise.
The Saudi-led coalition includes UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Senegal and Sudan.
The United States backed Ban's remarks on Thursday.
"The UN should be permitted to carry out its mandate, carry out its responsibilities, without fear of money being cut off," State Department spokesman Mark Turner told reporters.
The Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen in March last year with the aim of preventing Iranian-allied Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Yemen's ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking power.
Some 6000 people, about half of them civilians, have been killed there since last March, according to the UN.
Ban, who is in the final year of his second term, said a key concern of the Saudi-led coalition was that it had been listed alongside terrorist and extremist groups.
Human rights groups accused the UN chief of caving to pressure from powerful countries and said he risked harming his UN legacy.
The latest report blamed the Saudi-led coalition for 60 per cent of the 510 child deaths and 667 injuries in Yemen in 2015. Ban said he stands by those figures, while Mouallimi has described them as "wildly exaggerated."
