Again, on Arafat's visit to Damascus

The Jordanian weekly al-Sabeel said that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had telephoned just two hours before the time set for the arrival of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat to Damascus and asked the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to postpone this visit and set another date for it because of the approval of the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to Arafat- Peres meeting.

The paper quoted political sources as saying that by arranging the Arafat- Peres meeting Sharon intended at preventing Arafat from heading for Syria. A visit which would have toughened Arafat's position towards Israel.

A Palestinian source told the paper that Arafat responded to the American pressures and decided to go to meeting with Peres instead of heading to Damascus and that aimed not to anger Washington.

However, Palestinian officials said that Arafat received two telephone calls from the US secretary of state Collin Powel while he was in Amman preparing to head for Damascus.

This was also confirmed by Arafat's advisor Nabil Abu Rudinah who said that during the two telephone calls between Powell and Arafat concentration was made on the timing for the meeting between Arafat and Peres.

On the other hand, a Jordanian source told the Jordanian weekly al-Hilal ( the Crescent) that fears of the consequences of rapid detente in the Syrian- Palestinian relation had pushed the foiling of Arafat's visit to Damascus.

The Palestinian official in charge of the file of the Syrian- Palestinian relations Asaad Abdul Rahman said in a statement to the same paper that American pressures had prevented this visit for the meeting between Arafat and Peres.