UNITED NATIONS (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday announced that he will send a top UN official to Iraq "for preliminary consultations related to Iraq's security and sovereignty."

Ban told his monthly press conference here that he made the decision at the request of the Iraqi government.

"In response to a request from the government of Iraq, I will send (UN) Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco to Iraq for preliminary consultations related to Iraq's security and sovereignty."

"In Iraq, we saw a bomb attack earlier this week in which hundreds were killed and wounded," Ban said. "As elsewhere, these acts of violence target the innocent and aim to disrupt the country's fragile democracy."

Two suicide car bombs detonated inside Downtown Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, on Sunday. The blast caused extensive physical damage to surrounding structures, killed 136 people, and injured another 600 people, reports said.

Ban and the UN Security Council responded with respective statements issued here to strongly condemn the terrorist attacks and call for greater efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.