UNITED NATIONS – With what the U.N. considers fertile ground for increased diplomacy between Israelis and Arabs, Secretary-General Annan is caught without a Middle East point man, while the leading candidate, the veteran British diplomat Kieran Prendergast, still unconfirmed for the post, plans a trip to the region.

Mr. Annan yesterday declined to answer a direct question about Mr. Prendergast, who heads the U.N. Political Affairs Department and whose trip might solidify his front-runner status in the Middle East, where he could practice what one of his aides called “real diplomacy” as opposed to the “desk job” he currently holds.

“I just like being in Jerusalem in January,” Mr. Prendergast coyly told The New York Sun recently. Aides say that the trip has nothing to do with the new post, stressing that the region has been part of his current portfolio. Mr. Prendergast will be joined on the tour by his deputy for Middle Eastern affairs, Norway’s Geir Pederson, who has also been mentioned as a candidate for the vacated post.

Terje Roed-Larsen, who has been Mr. Annan’s personal representative in the Middle East, ended his term in December. He is expected to arrive soon in New York to head the U.N.-affiliated International Peace Academy and will also represent Mr. Annan in talks aimed at ending Syrian occupation of Lebanon.

Middle Eastern sources tell the Sun that Mr. Prendergast has lobbied both Israeli and Palestinian Arab policymakers to back him as Mr. Roed-Larsen’s replacement. As for his current job, the Financial Times said in a weekend article based on an interview with Mr. Annan’s incoming chief of staff, Mark Maloch Brown, that as part of a major U.N. reshuffle Mr. Prendergast is “on his way out” as head of the Political Affairs Department.

Mr. Annan ducked a specific question about Mr. Prendergast, pointing at the vacancy in the Middle East position instead. “Mr. Larsen has left,” he told reporters, “and I will have to name a replacement, which I will do very quickly.”

Mr. Annan yesterday said that yet another Middle Eastern position needs to be filled soon, confirming for the first time that the head of the U.N. Works and Relief Agency, which deals with millions of Arabs that are defined as Palestinian refugees, Peter Hansen, is being ousted. Jean Arnaud, former deputy envoy to Afghanistan under Mr. Annan’s adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, is said to be top candidate for the job.

In another Middle East nomination, Mr. Annan recently named his Lebanon envoy, Stefan de Mistura, to be his deputy representative in Iraq. Yesterday he also announced that the American Agriculture Secretary, Ann Veneman, will replace Carol Bellamy as head of the children fund known as Unicef.

Mr. Malloch Brown, who is said to be trusted by Mr. Annan to oversee the personnel changes, said that in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal those changes are going to be substantial. “The need for management reform is not [just] responding to Republicans in shoe-boxes on the beltway,” he told the Financial Times. “It should be a mainstream preoccupation of every government shareholder of the U.N.”