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UN Middle East Envoy Under Attack After ‘Horrific Beyond Belief’ Jenin Statement
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Larsen, third from left, and a UN delegation, touring the Jenin refugee camp |
OSLO, April 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, currently subject to strong criticism in Israel, reportedly broke diplomatic rules in 1999 by receiving a large cash prize without telling the authorities, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said Monday.
It said that Roed-Larsen, then a Norwegian diplomat, and his wife Mona Juul, currently Norway's ambassador to Israel, should have declared a 100,000-dollar (110,000-euro) prize they received from the Shimon Peres Center for Peace for their contribution to the 1993 Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestinians, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"This decision is mainly motivated by the fact that they did not tell the ministry, their employer, of the cash prize," a ministry statement said.
For his part, Roed-Larsen told Norway's NRK radio that he regretted having breached the rules, while stressing that he had not tried to cover up the money.
"I did not know that such rules existed and I did not believe it until I learned of the ministry's decision today," he said. “My prize had been widely reported in the media,” he added.
Roed-Larsen is recently loudly criticized in Israel because he announced, after visiting the devastated Jenin refugee camp, that the state of the camp was "horrific beyond belief".
Palestinians say Israeli occupation forces committed a massacre in the camp, scene of nine days of Israeli fierce attacks that ended on April 12.
The Peres Center, to which Norway has given 1.3 million dollars since it was founded in 1997, never gave a cash prize to anyone else. This fact fueled Norwegian media allegations that Juul had used her influence to convince Norway to fund the center.
The ministry said it would decide later on whether measures should be taken against Juul. Norway's NTB agency said she could be reprimanded or have a black mark on her records at the foreign ministry.
The couple is expected to issue a statement later.
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