U.N. Envoys' Feud Escalates Over Israeli 'Propaganda'

UNITED NATIONS — The feud between Damascus and a veteran U.N. diplomat, Terje Roed Larsen, is reaching new heights, as the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations yesterday publicly accused Mr. Larsen of using the U.N. Security Council as a "podium for Israeli propaganda."

Bashar Jaafari also attacked the American ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, calling his interpretation of Lebanon's constitution "twisted."

The accusations came as a Syrian ally, Hezbollah, conducted major military maneuvers near the Israeli border in a part of Lebanon that the Security Council has ordered be cleared of weapons, according to one news report. The Lebanese army and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon denied the report, published in al-Akhbar, a newspaper allied with Hezbollah.

In his latest report to the Security Council, Secretary-General Ban cited a letter from Prime Minister Siniora of Lebanon that accused Syria of aiding an armed group affiliated with Al Qaeda, Fatah al-Islam, that last summer mounted a bloody fight against the Lebanese army. The report, written in large part by Mr. Roed Larsen but signed by Mr. Ban, also cited a Syrian letter that denied Mr. Siniora's allegations.

"The report of the secretary-general should not be used as a podium for the Israeli propaganda and rumors and allegations with regard to any Syrian implication in this issue," Mr. Jaafari told The New York Sun yesterday. He said he was not blaming Mr. Ban: "I'm accusing Larsen of being behind any attempt" to use the council for propaganda against Syria, Mr. Jaafari said.

Mr. Larsen, a Norwegian national who last year was briefly denied entry to Syria, where he is seen as hostile, yesterday described the secretary-general's report to the council as "fair, accurate, and balanced." He said Mr. Siniora made the allegation about Syria's cooperation with Fatah al-Islam in a "publicly accessible" letter, and he noted that Syria's letter received equal weight in Mr. Ban's report. "We have no independent means to corroborate" the allegation, he added.

Earlier, Mr. Khalilzad addressed the Lebanese political deadlock on electing a replacement for President Lahoud, who is pro-Syrian. Supporters of Syria say the constitution requires a two-thirds majority in parliament to elect a new president, but Mr. Khalilzad said, "In many democracies a president gets elected by a majority and the constitution in Lebanon allows that."

Mr. Jaafari called Mr. Khalilzad's comment a "twisted interpretation by the American ambassador of the constitution. The American diplomacy is fighting for its own self. It is addressing things without balance."

Al-Akhbar's report yesterday, that the leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, "personally supervised" secret maneuvers by thousands of the organization's military operatives, was immediately denied by the Lebanese army and UNIFIL, which are jointly charged with enforcing a weapons-free zone south of Lebanon's Litani River.

"Regardless of the truth of this report, we have to listen closely to what Nasrallah says," an Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Carmon, said. Despite UNIFIL's "impressive" capabilities, he added, "Hezbollah is rearming and is nearing the military capabilities it possessed before last year's war." Of the accusation that the council is being used for Israeli propaganda, Mr. Carmon said, "I do not need to respond to anything Syria's U.N. ambassador says."