Secret Norwegian letter blasts UN leader

Norway's ambassador to the United Nations has accused Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a confidential letter of weak leadership, lack of charisma and angry outbursts, the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten newspaper reported Wednesday.

The newspaper published what it said was a letter to Norway's foreign ministry from Mona Juul.

"At a time when the U.N. and multilateral solutions to global crises are more needed than ever, Ban and the U.N. are notable by their absence," the letter read.

Juul and her husband Terje Roed-Larsen — now a U.N. special envoy — had key roles in secretly brokering the now-failed 1993 Oslo peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Juul wrote that Ban showed "weak handling" of international challenges. She said he was a "passive observer" to Myanmar's arrest of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and she blasted his slow reaction to the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marte Lerberg Kopstad refused comment on the authenticity of the letter. She referred reporters to Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere's comment to Aftenposten that he had noted the matter, and that he saw Ban as "hard working" and a "good listener."

Juul's Norwegian-language letter was published halfway through Ban's term as U.N. secretary-general. He is due on an official visit to Norway starting Aug. 31.