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Contradicting U.S. Stand, Egypt Rules Out Arafat Removal
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Maher and Arafat |
AMMAN, May 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Dismissing U.S. remarks concerning the Palestinian President and leadership, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher Sunday ruled out a U.S.-proposed Middle East peace conference without the Palestinian leader.
Talks with Yasser Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah showed "identical views [between Egypt and the Palestinians] on the issue of this conference," Maher told a press conference at Amman airport on his way back to Egypt.
He reiterated that Egypt's condition for holding the conference was an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian areas re-occupied in a West Bank offensive launched on March 29, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The Palestinian Authority and its President [Arafat] must not be excluded from this conference, in which all the Arab countries concerned - Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon - must take part," said Maher.
"Nobody can put in doubt the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority or that of Mr. Arafat as elected president at the head of this authority," said the foreign minister.
"I am returning from Ramallah assured that the Palestinian leadership and people are determined to follow the path of peace leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," he said.
Maher also said Arafat had no current plans to travel abroad. "He informed us that he has a lot of work to do in the Palestinian territories to reconstruct what the Israeli occupation destroyed," said the Minister.
The Foreign Minister and Egyptian Presidential Adviser Osama al-Baz both met Arafat in a show of solidarity.
With Arafat at his side, Maher said the relationship between Egypt and the Palestinian leadership "has always been very strong, before, after and during the difficult time the [Palestinian] people have endured."
The meeting was Arafat's first with senior Arab officials since Israel lifted its month-long siege of his Ramallah offices early Thursday morning.
Maher and Baz, political advisor to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, landed in the compound of Arafat's wrecked West Bank headquarters on board a Jordanian military helicopter that flew in from Amman.
Arafat walked the delegation back to the helicopter, passing a pile of at least 30 cars crushed during the Israeli siege.
On the planned conference, Baz said: "We don't want to lose any of the terms of reference that have been set in the past, and we don't want Israel to set terms of reference that will run the negotiations."
Maher’s statements are seen as a clear contradiction to the U.S. hostile remarks toward Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stated Sunday that the current leadership of the Palestinian people, headed by 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. Department of State 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.
However, Rice statements are seen by analysts and observers in the Middle East as another show of alignment with Israeli policy or a ‘welcome statement to Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’, on his way to Washington with a plan based on change of Palestinian leadership.
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