Al-Fahoum denies Syrian expulsion of Palestinian opposition

The chairman of the higher follow-up committee of the opposition Palestinian National Conference, Khaled al-Fahoum, has denied the claims highlighted by the press that there is a great concern in the lines of the Palestinian opposition groups' leaders as a result of concerns that they will be alienated from Syria in response to US pressure.

Al-Fahoum ridiculed a statement released by the Jordanian weekly al-Majd concerning these claims, which he described as fabricated and aiming to depict Syrian President Hafez al-Assad as being "just a Syrian," while in effect, "al-Assad is a great pan-national Arab leader."

In his statement to the paper, al-Fahoum asserted that these reports are baseless and groundless, aiming at splitting stances shared by the Palestinians and Syria and spreading confusion among the Palestinian opposition groups.

However, reports published in Amman on Sunday spoke of US pressures on Syria in order to force it to expel certain leaders of Palestinian opposition groups from its territories, saying their presence in Syria constitutes a danger to the peace process. Among those opposition leaders are George Habash, Nayef Hawatemah, Ahmad Jibril, Abu Moussa, Khaled al-Omleh and others.