By Robert Evans

GENEVA, March 18 (Reuters) - Twice as many Iraqis applied for asylum in developed countries in 2007 as in 2006, pushing up the number of new asylum seekers worldwide for the first time since 2002, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.

In a detailed report, the UNHCR said the number of formal asylum seekers from Iraq more than doubled to 45,200 last year, making up the largest tranche of the 338,000 applications received by 43 industrialised states around the globe.

Also on the rise were asylum claims from citizens of Russia, mainly people fleeing Chechnya, the UNHCR said, where the Russian army has been fighting separatist rebels for over a decade.

Their total rose 19 percent to 18,800 last year, with a big increase in the last three months of 2007. This made Russia the second-largest country of origin of asylum seekers in 2007.

The overall rise in asylum claims to 338,000 reversed a five-year downward trend, the UNHCR said. The 2006 global total of 306,300 had been the lowest for two decades.

The Iraqi figures -- mainly applications to the European Union, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- represent only 1 percent of the estimated 4.5 million Iraqis who have been uprooted by the conflict.

Some 2 million Iraqis have sought refuge in neighbouring countries such as Syria and Jordan, and an estimated 2.5 million have been driven from their homes but remain inside the country, which had a population of 27 million before the 2003 invasion.

PEAK LEVELS

At nearly 60,000 a year, Iraqi asylum applications were higher in the years preceding the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

While they initially fell back, making Iraq only the ninth-largest country of origin for asylum seekers in 2004, subsequent insurgent and sectarian fighting have spurred more Iraqis to seek refuge abroad.

"If current trends are maintained, the number of Iraqis submitting asylum claims in industrialised countries may reach in the coming years the peak levels seen between 2000 and 2002," the UNHCR said.

The biggest number of Iraqi claims in 2007 were lodged in Sweden, more than 40 percent of the total. The Nordic country's 18,600 applications were more than double the number seen in 2006 and seven times more than in 2005, the UNHCR said.

Next was Greece, which received 5,500 Iraqi claims in 2007, and Germany third with 4,200, according to the report which was based on government data. It did not include details on the number of asylum seekers admitted into countries.

Britain, the major U.S. partner in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, recorded only 2,100 Iraqi asylum applications while the United States itself reported a total of just 734.

China was the third leading source of asylum seekers after Iraq and Russia, the UNHCR study showed, accounting for 17,100 claims in 2007, down 9 percent from the previous year. Half were applications to the United States.

Serbia was next with 15,400 claims, and politically troubled Pakistan was the fifth-largest source, its asylum applications surging 87 percent over the year to 14,300 claims, of which two thirds were lodged in Greece. (Editing by Laura MacInnis and Tim Pearce)

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