Siding With Iraq Defined as a PLO Error : Middle East: The invasion relegated Palestinian issues to back burner, Kuwaiti says. Arafat aide concedes a possible mistake.

The Palestine Liberation Organization made a “big mistake” in siding with Iraq’s attack on Kuwait, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and the exiled Kuwaiti planning minister agreed.

“Maybe we did,” conceded PLO spokesman Shafik Hout.

Hurd repeated his statement twice at a news conference Wednesday at which he was asked why he called the Persian Gulf crisis the “first test” of a new, post-Cold War world order, ignoring the continuing conflict over Israel’s occupation of claimed Palestinian territories.

The brazen “snuffing out” of an independent state demanded immediate action, diverting the attention of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council from the Palestinian issue, Hurd said.

“Saddam Hussein kicked that prospect in the teeth,” the British official added. “We and the Americans have to make it clear that Arab problems remain, but the PLO has made a big mistake in supporting Hussein.”

Sulayman Mutawa, the Kuwaiti planning minister, was bitter toward the PLO during an interview at the palatial Kuwaiti mission to the United Nations.

“They are leading the Palestinian people into a new wilderness,” Mutawa said. “We have supported them in cash and kind--350,000 Palestinians have lived in Kuwait for the last 35 years. Our support for the Palestinians will continue; support for the PLO is another matter.”

Both Hout and Zehdi Labib Terzi, head of the Palestine observer unit at the United Nations, made the point that their organization is more concerned with the council’s general priorities than with defending Hussein’s invasion.

“There seem to be blond, blue-eyed resolutions that get more attention,” Hout charged.

Terzi denied that the PLO sought to aid Hussein in opposing U.N. sanctions imposed against Iraq, saying “what we opposed was action which precluded a negotiated solution.”

Meanwhile, Mutawa, who escaped from his homeland only hours ahead of Iraqi tanks on Aug. 2, backed Hurd’s contention that Hussein’s aggression has pushed Palestinian problems to the back burner.

“Their story has jumped off the front page back to the want ads,” Mutawa said, shaking his head.

He showed even more resentment when asked about King Hussein of Jordan, who along with the PLO has supplied public support for the Iraqi leader. Jordan’s king, he recalled, “came to Kuwait begging” when food riots broke out in the kingdom last year.

“We willingly bailed him out, and yet he now accuses us of financing opposition fundamentalist Muslims in the last Jordanian elections,” he said.

Asked if the king faces a permanent cutoff from Kuwait’s charity list, he replied: “We would have to reflect the feelings of people inside Kuwait. The reports we are getting is that Palestinians and Jordanians are helping to persecute Kuwaitis, denouncing them to occupation troops.”