Al-Sharaa confers with PLO executive committee member

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa on Thursday received a member of the political bureau of the PLO, Intisar al-Wazir (Um Jihad), who is the minister of social affairs in the Palestinian government.

The PLO's representative in Damascus, Mahmoud al-Khalidi, attended the meeting. Developments in the Palestinian and Arab-Israeli issues were reviewed.

Um Jihad arrived in Damascus on Monday and visited the "martyrs cemetery" in the Palestinian al-Yarmouk camp in Damascus, where her husband Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) is buried. Abu Jihad was assassinated in 1988 in Tunis by Israeli commandos. He was the second highest-ranking man in Fatah movement next to its leader Yasser Arafat.

The Lebanese daily al-Nahar reported that Um Jihad conveyed a verbal message relating to Palestinian affairs from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to the secretary-general of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Nayef Hawatmeh.