UN says Iraqis driving up asylum requests around the world

A surge of Iraqis seeking refuge in Europe and North America pushed asylum applications in rich countries up by 10 percent last year, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

Some 338,000 people applied for asylum in industrialized countries last year, and 45,000 of them came from Iraq, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.

In 2006 only 22,900 Iraqis applied for asylum in the 43 countries covered by the report.

The rise in the number of Iraqis asking for asylum has reversed a five-year downward trend in overall applications, UNHCR said.

It warned that if the number of Iraqi asylum seekers continues to grow it could rise above its …