Arafat Is Indispensible to Mideast Peace Process: AL Chief

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 06, 2002

Arafat Is Indispensible to Mideast Peace Process: AL Chief

Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Tuesday described Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as " indispensible" to the deadlocked Mideast peace process, urging Israel to lift its siege on him.

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Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Tuesday described Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as " indispensible" to the deadlocked Mideast peace process, urging Israel to lift its siege on him.

"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's proposal on hosting a meeting between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon clearly means that no progress can be achieved without the freedom and participation of Arafat," Moussa said, quoted by Egypt's official MENA news agency.

"A message that Mubarak wants to give is that the siege on Arafat must be lifted, and Sharon must change his policies that have led the Arab-Israeli conflict to its present debacle," he added.

On Monday, Mubarak, who is on a five-day visit to the United States, told CNN that he proposed a meeting between Arafat and Sharon at Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh to discuss the Mideast crisis.

He said the meeting would not end the crisis, but would "give the impression to both parties, to the people on both sides, to the people in the Arab world that there is a window of hope that we have to work with."

The Palestinian-Israeli violence has been escalating since Arafat was confined to the West Bank city of Ramallah by Israel early December.

So far, more than 1,200 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed since the outbreak of the violence in September 2000.

"The current Israeli policies mean that the Israelis do not want peace. How can they say that they want peace if their reply to Arab peace initiatives is more killings of and attacks on the Palestinians," Moussa stressed.

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