The United Nations envoy who was expelled from Sudan for comments he made on his personal website about the Darfur conflict told radio listeners in his native Netherlands on Tuesday that he did not regret what he had done.
"I was very careful... What I wrote was an open secret," said Jan Pronk, speaking to the private BNR Nieuwsradio station after leaving the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
The Sudanese military had accused Pronk of "waging psychological warfare on the armed forces by propagating erroneous information" in the form of reports that Sudanese government forces suffered major losses against Darfur rebels.
Pronk, who received support on Tuesday from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said the reports he had mentioned on his website had also been published in Sudanese newspapers.
"The key thing is that a peace agreement has been signed on Darfur," he said. "But the (Sudanese) army is taking no notice of it and is trying to win a military victory regardless," he added.
"That's what I've been denouncing, for several months now. And that's what they don't like," he said.
In New York, where Pronk was headed for consultations, a spokesman for Annan said the secretary general had confidence in his envoy.
"We are recalling him temporarily for consultations. His status remained unchanged," spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
Pronk's personal web-log entry of October 14 said that the Sudanese army had suffered major losses and was working with elements linked to the Janjaweed, a pro-government militia accused of gross abuses against ethnic minority civilians in Darfur.
Despite Annan's expression of support for Pronk, a UN diplomat who was speaking on condition of anonymity said the Dutch official had put the world body in a bind.
Queried about Pronk's blog comments last week, Dujarric said they reflected his "personal views."
As to the propriety of having a senior UN official sound off on policy matters in a personal blog, Dujarric replied: "Staff regulations have not kept up with technology."
The European Union voiced deep concern and stressed that "the United Nations plays a key role which must be reinforced".
Pronk has long been a thorn in the side of the Khartoum government.
He has openly called Sudan a "police state" and said refugees in Darfur were victims of "Arabic racism".