Free Republic

UNITED NATIONS, July 19 (Reuters) - Syria barred a U.N. mission to the Middle East unless it excluded one of its members, Norwegian Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. adviser on Syria-Lebanon issues, a U.N. official said on Wednesday. Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary-general, told reporters the mission decided not to go to Damascus because it urgently needed to return to New York to brief the U.N. Security Council on a flurry of diplomatic initiatives. "The mission did plan to go to Syria and one of the issues we would have had to grapple with is what to do with Roed-Larsen,"...

JERUSALEM -- Furious Palestinians on Wednesday banned the U.N. peace envoy from the West Bank and Gaza Strip after he lashed out at Yasser Arafat in a statement to the Security Council. A senior aide to the Palestinian leader described envoy Terje Roed-Larsen as "useless" and said he's no longer welcome in the Palestinian areas. Expressing frustration as he winds up his Mideast mission, Roed-Larsen blamed 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. Afterward, he denied he had changed his attitude toward...