|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
JAKARTA (AFP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Wednesday the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is reassessing its plan to formally declare the independence of the Palestinian state on September 13.
Arafat said a decision on whether to declare the state of Palestine would be taken only at "the beginning of next month." "We have decided the course, but we have to reassess this," Arafat told journalists after meeting Indonesian leader Abdurrahman Wahid at the presidential palace here. The announcement came after a flurry of activities in the Middle East including the announcement by Israel's Acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami that peace talks with the Palestinians would resume later in the day. Arafat said here the Central Council, the Palestinians' second-highest decision-making body, would conduct the reassessment. Palestinian officials have said the council is to meet next month. Arafat had earlier said he would proclaim the state on September 13, but since the Camp David summit broke down on July 25, he has been increasingly vague about whether he will stick to the September 13 date in the face of strong US and Israeli pressure. Arafat has also failed to win much backing for the unilateral move during a whirlwind tour of some 20 world capitals, and even his closest Arab ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said Sunday he believed it might be delayed to avoid a confrontation with Israel. Egyptian ambassador to Israel Mohammed Bassiouni said in Cairo earlier Wednesday that Egypt is in contact with Israel, the Palestinians and the United States to prepare a "blueprint" Israeli-Palestinian peace deal to be discussed at a possible new summit. But two Palestinian opposition groups have warned against any postponement in the declaration of a Palestinian state and said they are against any new peace summit with Israel. The opposition warning came in a joint communiqué issued in Gaza City late Tuesday by the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Islamic National Salvation party, which is close to the militant group, Hamas. Last year, Arafat bowed to international pressure to delay a planned declaration of statehood in May, when the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords expired. Arafat is currently on an Asian tour canvassing support for a statehood declaration on September 13 after the failure of the Camp David peace talks. He has already visited Vietnam and is due to fly from here to Japan |
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
