Peres: Arafat is the real representative of the Palestinians

The Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres has stressed that the chairman of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat is the real representative of the Palestinian people in their ambitions " and if Israel will drop legitimacy from him, he will be backed more and more by most of the world countries." In a statement quoted by the Monte Carlo radio on Wednesday, Peres added that Arafat wants to stop what he called " terrorism" because he is in a very difficult condition and he has to take into consideration the world public opinion and the economic difficulties of the Palestinian people.