Arafat: situation is serious, some Arab states want summit
Regional, Politics, 6/10/1998

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said the situation in the Middle-East is very serious, and theatens the entire peace process between the Arab states and Israel, and called for imposing more pressure on Israel to salvage the peace mission.

In a televised interview with the Spanish television broadcast on Tuesday night, Arafat said that the peace process with Israel "encounters a real dilemma", adding that the matter does not only concern the Palestinians and Israelis alone, but all Arabs, Russia, Europe, the United States and the whole world.

Arafat recalled that the Madrid peace conference in the Middle-East that was held in October 1991 was not a Palestinian-Israeli nor an Arab-Israeli conference, however, all world superpower countries had taken part.

He said that according to that, the world community ought to exercice pressure against Israel to force it honor its commitments with the Palestinians.

Arafat called on all parties that took part in the Madrid peace conference to re-initiate a new peace conference for the sake of reviving the peace mission. He added that the Israeli prime minister is working against this peace mission.

He pointed out that Israel's rejection of the U.S. proposal which calls on Israel to hand over the Palestinian National Authority a 13 percent of the total West Bank area, has endangered the entire peace process in the Middle-East, Map reported.

The Palestinian president Yasser Arafat after his visit to Suday a couple of days ago in which he met the Sudanese president Omar El-Bashir, before heading to Borkina Faso to participate in the meeting of the African summit said that "he is still holding consultations over convening an Arab summit, referring that most of the people he met and not all of them are supporting convening the summit, he also said that his call for convening the summit doesn't only aim at facing the peace process solidity, yet it is also aims at bringing back the Arab cooperation and the joint work to its nature."

Previous Stories:
  Arab mini-summit under hot debate   (5/29/1998)
  Arab League praises Hillary Clinton's attitude   (5/13/1998)
  Europe to play more active part in peace process, EU envoy says   (12/1/1997)

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