JERUSALEM — After more than 20 years of championing the Palestinian cause, the U.N.’s Middle East peace envoy lashed out at Yasser Arafat and received a stinging rebuke yesterday.
Expressing frustration as he winds up his Mideast mission, Terje Roed-Larsen blamed Mr. Arafat for lack of progress toward vital reforms and peace moves backed by the world body. He was speaking Tuesday before the U.N. Security Council.
A senior aide to the Palestinian leader responded yesterday by describing Mr. Roed-Larsen as “useless” and said he is no longer welcome in Palestinian areas.
A U.N. statement yesterday said that Secretary-General Kofi Annan “wishes to express his full support and confidence” in the envoy.
The statement said Mr. Roed-Larsen’s intention was to convey concerns “regarding a lack of implementation by both parties” of their obligations under an international peace plan called the “road map.”
The Norwegian-born diplomat was a key player in setting up the secret Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that led to an interim peace accord in 1993.
A decade earlier, he set up the Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science, where he started a research project into the living conditions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Since taking up his U.N. peace post, Mr. Roed-Larsen has repeatedly criticized Israeli army closures and military incursions in Palestinian areas, angering Israeli officials.
In a visit to the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp in April 2003, after an intense Israeli offensive there, he described the scene as “horrifying beyond belief.” That led to an official Israeli boycott.
In an address to the Security Council on Tuesday, however, he had scathing words for Mr. Arafat and his Palestinian Authority.
“The Palestinian Authority, despite consistent promises by its leadership, has made no progress on its core obligation to take immediate action on the ground to end violence and combat terror, and to reform and reorganize the Palestinian Authority,” he said.
Mr. Roed-Larsen said the only explanation is “the lack of political will” to advance toward reform.
Criticizing Mr. Arafat directly, Mr. Roed-Larsen said that the Palestinian leader has “lent only nominal and partial support” to Egypt’s efforts to reform the Palestinian security services ahead of Israel’s planned Gaza Strip withdrawal.
Israel has kept Mr. Arafat confined to his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah for more than two years, in what Mr. Roed-Larsen called “difficult conditions.”
“However, this is not an excuse for passivity and inaction,” Mr. Roed-Larsen added.
Israeli officials had no immediate comment on his remarks, but Nabil Abu Rdeneh, Mr. Arafat’s top adviser, reacted angrily.
“We have demanded that [U.N. Secretary-General] Kofi Annan inquire about Roed-Larsen’s actions. The Palestinian government probably will act on the basis that [Roed-] Larsen is unwanted in the Palestinian territories,” Mr. Abu Rdeneh said. “[Roed-] Larsen himself is useless and is not welcomed in the Palestinian territories.”
A statement from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a violent offshoot of Mr. Arafat’s Fatah movement, called for a boycott of Mr. Roed-Larsen. “We do not give him permission to enter any Palestinian territory.”
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