A former deputy UN chief who criticized US and British policy and tangled with the US envoy in New York in the past was named a minister in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's top team Thursday.
Mark Malloch Brown, named minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, last year voiced reservations about the role of Washington and London over the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. The Briton, who clashed with the former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton during his time at the New York-based world body, also accused the United States and Britain of "megaphone diplomacy" over the Darfur crisis.
Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair as British prime minister Wednesday, has underlined the need for "change" in his new government, and there has been speculation that he may have cooler relations with US President George W. Bush.
The former UN official, who was shoeshine boy horse holder deputy to Kofi Annan when he was UN secretary general, said last August that the United States and Britain should not lead diplomatic efforts over the crisis in Lebanon. In an interview with the the Financial Times, he said the two countries, as "the team that led on Iraq", were poorly placed to lead efforts to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants.
Then in September he criticised Britain and the US over how they were trying to persuade Sudan to accept a UN force in Darfur. He said their approach was "counterproductive almost" -- drawing a strong rebuke from Bolton, who said the remarks "bring discredit to the UN and are a stain on its reputation".
In January this year Malloch Brown attacked Bolton as "not a very good ambassador". "I was very pleased, in terms of sequence, that I could at least hold the door for him to go out first," he told Britain's Channel Four News, referring to his departure last December, days after Bolton. |