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Rice Questions Arafat’s Leadership
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National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice |
WASHINGTON, May 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In yet another show of alignment with Israeli policy, U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stated Sunday that the current leadership of the Palestinian people, headed by Yasser Arafat, is “not the right one for the creation of a Palestinian state”.
"The Palestinian leadership that is there now, the Authority, is not the kind of leadership that can lead to the Palestinian state that we need," Rice said on Fox News Sunday.
Israel has in the past called Arafat “irrelevant.” However, the U.S. State Department has repeatedly stated that Arafat is considered by the U.S. to be the leader of the Palestinian people – once again illustrating the rift in Middle East policy between the State Department and White House.
While U.S. President George W. Bush has been blatant about calling for a change in regime in Iraq, this is the first time any statements have been made regarding the Arafat leadership.
United Nation’s mandate prohibits any actions against leaders by any other state, country or leadership.
Rice also went on to say that the current situation in Iraq is "not acceptable,” but added Washington had yet to decide how to deal with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"I don't think there is any doubt that Saddam Hussein ... has been trying to figure out how to get ultimate weapons of mass destruction," Rice told Fox News Sunday.
"That's why the status quo is not acceptable."
Rice added, however, that President Bush "has made no decision as to how he will deal with Saddam Hussein."
"We're in consultation with our friends and allies, [and] we have felt, the president felt that it is extremely important to make clear that the status quo is not acceptable with this regime," Rice said.
Bush has threatened to attack Iraq and seek to overthrow Hussein unless Baghdad allows U.N. arms inspectors back into the country to verify claims that it no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction.
A date for the next round of talks between Iraq and the United Nations will be set sometime in May, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Sunday.
"It was agreed to hold a new round of talks, whose date will be set in the course of this month," Sabri said on his return to Baghdad from three-days of talks in New York with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on the possible return of U.N. arms inspectors to Iraq.
After the meetings with Sabri, which ended Friday, Annan announced that discussions with Baghdad on the inspectors' possible return should resume within a month at an as yet undetermined venue.
The meetings took place "in a climate of candor within the framework of focused negotiations aimed at upholding Iraq's rights," said Sabri, quoted by the official INA news agency.
These rights include "safeguarding our country's sovereignty and territorial integrity," putting an end to "the daily aggression" by U.S. and British warplanes in "no-fly" zones over northern and southern Iraq, he said.
Sabri also called for securing the lifting of "the unfair [U.N.] embargo" imposed since Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Both Annan and Sabri, who had met on March 7, described the latest round as "useful and frank," and the U.N. chief said the two sides had been able to have a thorough and focused discussion on technical aspects of disarmament for the first time since the inspectors left Iraq.
After briefing the U.N. Security Council, Annan told reporters Friday he hoped "real progress" would be made at the next round of talks, meaning the Iraqis would accept the inspectors' return.
Iraq has barred the inspectors since they fled the country on the eve of a December 1998 U.S.-British bombing blitz.
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