Arafat: Sharon's visit to India might escalate tension with Pakistan

In a press interview issued yesterday, the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat expressed his conviction that the visit which will be held by the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to New Delhi as well as India's plans to buy military equipment from Israel might increase the pace of tension between India and Pakistan.

In an interview published yesterday with the Indian "Hindu" daily he said that Sharon can not provide any thing. What he says will escalate the situation and the war between India and Pakistan."

Sharon, however, is expected to head for India on September 9 in the first visit for an Israeli prime minister to India, since the two countries have established full diplomatic relations between them in 1992. It is, however, expected that the question of the so-called "war against terrorism" will dominate the talks that Sharon will hold in India while New Delhi will seek to get Israel's support in controlling the border crossing operations via its borders from Pakistan.

Arafat said that New Delhi's close relations with Israel came in light of his signing a peace agreement in 1993 with the Israeli prime minister then, Yitzhak Rabin.