Ex-U.N. adviser slams U.S. policy in Middle East in leaked report

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NEW YORK -- A retired top U.N. adviser disparaged U.S. policy in the Middle East in a confidential report leaked yesterday, accusing Washington of skewing the work of international mediators in support of Israel.

Alvaro de Soto, who until recently served as the U.N. envoy to the Middle East Quartet and to the Palestinian government, chastised U.N. officials for allowing the Americans to sway the Quartet from a neutral to a pro-Israel posture.

The entire U.N. peace process is "strategically subservient to U.S. policy in the broader Middle East, including Iraq and Iran ... a policy that has become discredited," he said in the report, in which he suggested that the United Nations withdraw from the group.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he had not seen the document, but attributed its reported findings to the "personal views of an individual," rather than "the corporate views of the U.N."

Mr. de Soto, a Peruvian diplomat, said the Bush administration had bullied the United Nations into agreeing to a review of aid and support to the Hamas-led Palestinian government just a month after it was legitimately elected.

He wrote of intense pressure from U.S. envoys David Welch and Elliot Abrams to participate in a strategy of isolating Hamas.

"I was subjected to a heavy barrage ... including ominous innuendo" suggesting that if then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan didn't agree to review international assistance to the Palestinians, Congress would likely review its funding for the United Nations.

Mr. Annan's successor, Ban Ki-moon, who received and read the 52-page "end of mission" report last month, stressed yesterday that the report reflected Mr. de Soto's "personal view."

"I would not agree with his point that the Quartet has become some kind of sideshow," he added, arguing that the group -- comprising Russia, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations -- was in fact "re-energized."

A senior U.N. official said yesterday that the Quartet will meet on June 26 and 27 in the region, joined by representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Syria and the Arab League.