No Link Between Delaying U.N. Team and Lifting Siege on Arafat: PNA Official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, May 01, 2002

No Link Between Delaying U.N. Team and Lifting Siege on Arafat: PNA Official

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A Palestinian official denied Tuesday that there is any link between delaying the arrival of the United Nations team to Jenin and lifting the siege imposed on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Speaker of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) parliament Ahmed Qurea said that the reason for delaying the arrival of the U. N. team to investigate the massacre in Jenin is that Israel wants to dictate its conditions on its mission.

Qurea also denied what Dalia Rabin, a deputy to Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, said that there was a link between not receiving the U.N. team and lifting the siege imposed on Arafat.

Arafat has been confined to his office in Ramallah since March 29. On Sunday, both Israel and the Palestinians accepted a fresh U. S. proposal, under which Israel would lift the siege on Arafat in return for the custody of four Palestinian militants in a Palestinian jail to be guarded by U.S. and British soldiers in Jerico in the West Bank.

The four militants who were allegedly involved in the assassination of a former Israeli cabinet minister are currently holed up inside Arafat's compound in Ramallah.

Qurea said that rejecting to receive the U.N. team and to respect the decisions of the Security Council means that Israel is controlling the whole world and considers itself above the international law.

Israel Radio earlier reported that the Israeli security cabinet decided Tuesday morning not to cooperate, for now, with the U.N. team to Jenin, saying that the conditions set by Israel have not yet been met.

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