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Arafat
Hails Return Of Zinni
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| Zinni’s
mission plagued by constant Israeli violence
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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Jan. 2 (IslamOnline &
News Agencies) – Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, hailed the expected
return Thursday of U.S. envoy, Anthony Zinni, to the region to push for steps
toward renewing Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.
According to Paul Patin, a spokesman for the
U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Zinni will ask Arafat to dismantle resistance groups
and will urge Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to ease restrictions on the
Palestinians.
"The
goal of all that is to get back to Mitchell and Tenet," Patin said,
referring to the internationally approved plans to defuse 15 months of violence
and open the door to political negotiations.
Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, said
he hoped the visit "will set a timetable and mechanism to implement
Mitchell and Tenet and also to end the (Israeli) closure and siege and for
Israel to pull back to their positions of September 28, 2000," when the
Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation began.
Zinni broke off his first Mideast mission in
mid-December after a three-week stay amid a sharp escalation of violence.
He was originally sent to the region November
26, on what was described as an "open-ended" mission to forge an
Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire.
Arafat has welcomed the proposed return of
Zinni to the Middle East as an opportunity to revive the mediating role of the
U.S.
"We hope that Zinni's visit will go in the
right direction so that we can put things back on track, on the basis of what we
agreed," Arafat told Agence France-Presse (AFP), referring to a series of
previous talks aimed at reaching a settlement.
This comes after Sharon vetoed an initiative to
have Israel’s president, Moshe Katzav, address a session of the Palestine
Legislative Council (PLC) in Ramallah.
The initiative was proposed by Arab-Israeli politician Abdul Malik Dehamshe, and
had gained tentative approval by both Arafat and Katzav.
The Israeli president was expected to call for
a one-year ceasefire to be undertaken by both sides.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon
Peres, questioned Sharon's insistence on seven straight days of calm before a
formal ceasefire, as outlined last year by CIA chief George Tenet, could be
implemented, BBC’s online news service reported.
"Tenet does not call for seven days of
quiet, but is meant to be started immediately," Peres said.
"If calm continues for the next two or
three days it would be a very good time to start the implementation of the Tenet
plan," he told state television.
The Israeli foreign minister also told the
television station that he was in favor of an "American involvement in the
discussions," referring to plans for Zinni, the retired Marine Corps
general, to return to the Middle East Thursday.
Hours
after the sudden announcement of Zinni's return, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a
splinter group from Arafat's resistance movement Fatah, said in a statement they
would adhere to the Palestinian leader's December 16 call for an end to
retaliatory attacks on Israel.
"We
pledge an absolute commitment to all the decisions issued by Arafat and the
presidency," said the statement.
The U.S. originally dispatched Zinni to the
region in November 2001 to try to implement the Tenet ceasefire project, which
would be followed up by a plan for peace negotiations recommended last May by
former U.S. senator George Mitchell.
The Mitchell plan calls on Israel to freeze all
new construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories and to stop
the occupation army firing on unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.
Both measures have been disregarded by Israel.
The plan requests the Palestinian Authority to
clamp down on resistance activists.
In recent weeks, scores of Palestinian resistance
activists have been arrested amid intense international pressure to crack down
on them.
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