UN's Ban meets controversial predecessor Waldheim

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 24 (Reuters) U N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has met privately with Kurt Waldheim, a predecessor who was banned from the United States after a scandal over his role in the German army in World War Two.

A U N spokeswoman said Ban met in Vienna yesterday with Waldheim, who was the fourth U N secretary-general and who later became president of Austria.

The meeting was private, not official, U N deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in answer to questions. She said Ban had known Waldheim since he served as South Korea's ambassador to Vienna from 1998 to 2000.

''My understanding is that the secretary-general personally knew Mr. Waldheim and his daughter during his tenure as his country's ambassador to Austria,'' Okabe said.

Asked about the appropriateness of the meeting, Okabe said: ''It was a private meeting and he met with somebody he knew on a personal basis and I have nothing further.'' Waldheim was secretary-general from 1972 to 1981 and Austrian president from 1986 to 1992. During his presidential campaign, an Austrian magazine disclosed that he had hidden the fact that he served with Adolf Hitler's army.

Waldheim, now 88, has vigorously denied accusations that he had engaged in war crimes while stationed in the Balkans, where atrocities were widespread.

The United States placed him on its ''watch list'' of undesirable aliens in 1987 and has not permitted him to enter the country since then.

Waldheim conceded in a 1996 autobiography that he had concealed his service in the German army from 1942 to 1945 but insisted his behavior was above reproach.

Associate U N spokeswoman Choi Soung-Ah, who also served as Ban's spokeswoman in South Korea, said the two men had been personal friends when Ban was in Vienna. She noted photographs of the two men from the late 1990s had been distributed during Ban's campaign for secretary-general last year.

But David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said he was dismayed by the meeting.

''In light of Ban Ki-moon's strong remarks about the unacceptability of Holocaust denial, we hope he used some of their time together to educate Mr. Waldheim on the horrors of the Holocaust,'' Harris said.

REUTERS PDS RN0414