WASHINGTON - A third U.S. diplomat has resigned partly because of opposition to U.S. policy toward Iraq, a State Department official said on Thursday.

Mary Wright, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, cited U.S. policy toward Iraq, North Korea and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as reasons for her decision to step down, said the official, who asked not to be named. The official did not know when Wright's resignation took effect.

"I strongly believe that going to war now will make the world more dangerous, not safer," Wright, the senior-most U.S. diplomat to step down over Iraq, said in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell that quoted by the Washington Post.

The newspaper said Wright also criticized what she called a "lack of policy on North Korea" and a "lack of effort" by Washington to try to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Wright followed John H. Brown, a former cultural attache at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, and John Brady Kiesling, political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, in stepping down this year because of U.S. policy on Iraq.

The United States began its war against Iraq on Wednesday by bombing targets on the outskirts of Baghdad and it attacked key sites in the Iraqi capital with cruise missiles on Thursday in an effort to end Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's rule.

Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd

###