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Lebanon Rejects Bush Mideast plan, India Calls Arafat ‘A Friend’
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| Bush's
speech caused widespread shock, Al-Hariri said.
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BEIRUT,
June 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – India and Lebanon have
joined the world chorus against U.S. President George W. Bush's Middle
East plan, voicing support for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as
the legitimately elected President of Palestine.
While
Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi voiced Friday, June 28,
2002, Lebanon’s rejection of Bush’s Middle East plan, saying
Beirut backed international resolutions and the Arab peace initiative,
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Friday he considered
Arafat a "traditional friend" despite U.S. insistence that
the Palestinian Authority chief be ousted.
"The
Cabinet rejected the contents of the speech by President Bush and
reaffirmed its attachment to the international resolutions whose
implementation it demands," Aridi said after the weekly cabinet
meeting chaired by Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri late Thursday,
June 27, 2002, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
He
also said that Lebanon would stick by Syria, which was singled out for
criticism in the Bush speech, and oppose "all threats and
attempts to dictate terms, from wherever they come."
Bush
told the Palestinians in a speech Monday, June 24, 2002, they should
replace their veteran President Yasser Arafat and others leaders he
described as "compromised by terrorism" in future elections
as a condition for U.S. support for the creation of a Palestinian
state.
The
U.S. leader urged Israel to eventually withdraw from occupied
Palestinian territories and dismantle Israeli settlements, but laid
most of the burden for Middle East peace at the feet of the
Palestinians, AFP said.
But
he also warned that "every nation actually committed to peace
will stop the flow of money, equipment and recruits to terrorist
groups seeking the destruction of Israel, including Hamas, Islamic
Jihad and Hezbollah," the Lebanese political and resistance
movement.
"Every
nation actually committed to peace must block the shipment of Iranian
supplies to these groups and... Syria must choose the right side in
the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist
organizations," he added.
Aridi
said Hariri had commented that Bush's speech had caused widespread
shock.
Hariri
said the enthusiastic reception for the speech in Israel showed how
"dangerous" it was. He regretted that there had been no
mention of the Arab peace plan adopted at the Beirut summit in March,
Aridi said.
The
summit of the Arab League approved a Saudi plan offering Israel
peaceful relations with Arab countries if it withdrew from all Arab
land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, including the Palestinian
territories, east Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights.
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| “Arafat
has been a traditional friend of
India
and I will try and see that tensions are eased," Vajpayee
told reporters.
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Meanwhile
in Lucknow, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Friday he
considered Yasser Arafat a "traditional friend," despite
U.S. insistence that the Palestinian Authority chief be ousted.
"Arafat
has been a traditional friend of India and I will try and see that
tensions are eased," Vajpayee told reporters without further
elaboration.
India
has long enjoyed close ties with Arafat, but also has a warming
relationship with Israel, particularly on defense cooperation.
India
recognized Israel shortly after its creation in 1948, but did not have
full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state until 1992 amid the
U.S.-sponsored Arab-Israeli peace process.
The
Islamic states have also voiced support of Arafat during the meeting
of foreign ministers of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC) that was held on Wednesday, June 27, in Khartoum.
The
ministers made no mention of Bush's speech in their final statement
issued at the end of their three-day meeting in the Sudanese capital.
But
the statement "renewed the Islamic nation's collective support to
the Palestinian people's struggle to recover their rights ... under
the leadership of President Yasser Arafat."
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