RAMALLAH, West Bank, 16 July 2004 — The Palestinian Authority played down a damaging row with the United Nations yesterday after declaring its Middle East envoy persona non grata, casting a cloud over an upcoming General Assembly debate on Israel’s “illegal” West Bank barrier.

A day after veteran leader Yasser Arafat’s top aide said Terje Roed-Larsen was “not welcome” in the occupied territories, a senior official insisted the envoy was still free to talk with Palestinians. “There has been no formal decision to boycott Roed-Larsen,” Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei’s chief of staff, Hassan Abu Libdeh, told AFP.

Roed-Larsen has previously been something of a bete noire for the Israelis over his outspoken criticism of the occupation of the territories. But he ironically won praise from the Israelis after he told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that there was a “steadily emerging chaos” in Palestinian areas and that Arafat had shown a “lack of political will” to reform his government.

Arafat’s senior adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said Larsen’s declarations “were unacceptable and he is not welcome in Palestinian lands.”

Palestinian Authority’s chief UN representative, Nasser Al-Kidwa, said: “We have not decided anything”. Palestinian Telecommunications Minister Azzam Al-Ahmad yesterday insisted: “There is no row back ... no contradiction ... Mr. Roed-Larsen is persona non grata but not barred from entering our territories.”

Al-Ahmad said Al-Kidwa would take the matter up soon with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has voiced “full support” for Roed-Larsen and said the UN envoy spoke on his behalf, according to Annan’s spokeswoman.

Roed-Larsen helped forge 1993 interim peace deals that gave Palestinians self-rule in Israeli-occupied lands and has been the UN envoy in a mediating quartet struggling to end violence going on since talks on Palestinian statehood collapsed in 2000.

Israel has boycotted Roed-Larsen since 2002 over what it has considered his pro-Palestinian tilt. He maintained contacts with Arafat and his inner circle although he has not met the Palestinian president for a year.

Roed-Larsen appeared to shock Palestinians when, in an unusually blistering briefing before the UN Security Council on Tuesday he said Arafat was not lifting a finger to carry out security reforms seen as critical to reviving peace steps.

He spoke of a paralyzed, passive Palestinian Authority on the brink of collapse amid crumbling law and order and said the democratic reforms were crucial to restore law and order and the credibility abroad of the self-rule administration.

The Norwegian diplomat is to leave his post at year’s end to become head of a New York think tank close to UN thinking.

Al-Ahmad said Palestinians were furious with Roed-Larsen because he was increasingly “siding with Israel”, even after Friday’s World Court decision declaring illegal its barrier built on West Bank territory and calling for its removal.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed group loyal to Arafat, said the envoy was henceforth “banned” from the territories while another radical movement, Islamic Jihad, also declared yesterday that Roed-Larsen was “no longer welcome” and accused him of trying to instigate a “Palestinian civil war.”

Abu Libdeh insisted yesterday that the Palestinians had “no problem” with the United Nations “but merely with Roed-Larsen himself”.

“We still believe that the UN is standing alongside us, and that the UN is the place where our state will be declared.”

The spat comes on the eve of an expected UN General Assembly debate on Israel’s West Bank wall, which was declared in breach of international law in a non-binding opinion by the world court last Friday.

Jordan, the current head of the Arab group at the UN, said yesterday it had formally asked the General Assembly to discuss the world court ruling. The General Assembly is expected to debate a resolution calling on Israel to respect the ruling, which said parts of the wall already built on Palestinian land should be torn down and that compensation should be paid to people who have lost land.

However, the Arab group is not expected to push for a UN Security Council resolution on the issue, well aware that the United States would simply veto it.

Palestinian Labor Minister Ghassan Khatib said he did not believe the Roed-Larsen row would undermine the wall vote “at all”.