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Islamic Summit "Invites" Muslim States To Break Ties With Israel
by Haro Chakmakjian and Taieb Mahjoub
DOHA (AFP) - The world's Muslim leaders on Monday "invited" Islamic countries to break ties with Israel and expressed "total confidence" in the Palestinian leadership, in a final declaration at their summit.
Leaders of the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), in the document, "invite[d] member states that have relations with Israel or that have taken measures toward the establishment of such relations as part of the peace process to break them."
OIC Secretary General Ezzedin Laraki said the "document on the al-Aqsa Intifada [uprising] and the independence of Palestine" had been approved and awaited only the formal signing by the members whose summit opened on Sunday.
The Muslim leaders also "express their total confidence in the Palestinian people and their leadership under the PLO leadership," and hail the uprising against Israel that has cost 217 lives over the past six weeks.
Delegates said the term "requests" for the cut in ties was watered down to "invites" at the insistence of African member countries, several of which have ties with the Jewish state.
In another wrangle, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's name was dropped from the vote of confidence in the leadership of the Palestinians at Syria's urging, the delegates said.
Damascus was a fierce opponent of the 1993 Palestinian autonomy accords, accusing Arafat, with whom Syria's ties have long been strained, of breaking ranks and making a separate peace with Israel.
Senior Palestinian official Faisal Husseini played down the omission of Arafat's name.
"It is clear 'PLO leadership' means [its chairman] Yasser Arafat. The wording makes no difference. He was elected by the Palestinian people under international supervision," the top Palestinian official for Jerusalem said.
The Intifada text also calls for the U.N. Security Council to "assure the international protection of the Palestinian people" and to "put a halt to the massacres carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities."
In a warning to Washington, the document said OIC member countries "are determined to break their relations with any state that transfers its embassy to Jerusalem or recognizes the holy city as Israel's capital."
The OIC summit also backed Palestinian calls for an independent international inquiry into the violence, and for the formation of an international tribunal to try Israeli war criminals.
Leaders of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims hailed "the legitimate Intifada of the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation" and pledged "support and backing for their Intifada."
They would put "all their capacities at the service of liberating the Palestinian and Arab occupied territories," and support the Palestinians to recover their land, on the return on refugees and to establish an independent state.
The member countries would organize collection funds for the Intifada and contribute Arab solidarity funds worth $1 billion that were set up at the Arab summit in Cairo last month.
Other final resolutions of the gathering awaited the definitive wording on the situation between Kuwait and its former occupier Iraq.
Arab diplomats said Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia were involved in mediation efforts between the sworn foes, looking for a breakthrough meeting between their foreign ministers.
But the two sides were wrangling over dropping the term "aggression", in reference to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, delegates said.
U.N. chief Kofi Annan was to meet Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's second-in-command on Monday night on the sidelines of the summit after an almost yearlong stalemate in efforts to ease decade-old U.N. sanctions.
Annan was to hold talks with Ezzat Ibrahim, the deputy chairman of Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, with an open agenda.
"The meeting was arranged at Iraq's initiative. The Iraqis want to get things moving on a lifting of sanctions," a diplomatic source said.
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