Contacts to prepare for a meeting between Hawatemah and Arafat

Palestinian sources in Damascus revealed that contacts are currently being made between the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by Nayef Hawatemah and Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

These contacts, are arranged by the director of President Mubarak's office for political affairs, Osama El-Baz, to bring about a meeting of Arafat and Hawatemah in Cairo.

The spokesman for the DFLP, Ali Badwan, told the Lebanese daily al-Nahar that the atmosphere is suitable to convene the meeting. Badwan indicated that the main preconditions for such a meeting to be made is built on Arafat's "commitment to open dialogue between the sides of the PLO in order to rebuild it in the context of comprehensive national unity."

The front's sources said "good preparation for this meeting would be against transferring this meeting into a media campaign which would serve Arafat."

The sources stressed that Hawatemah does not intend in the meantime to return to the Palestinian territories under the pressures he undergoes now as a result of his being dismissed from the follow up committee of the Palestinian National Congress after he shook hands with Israeli President Ezer Weizman, when the two men took part in the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan.