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Arafat Urges Israeli Attack Cessation Prior to Any Summit
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has stressed that no summit should be held with Israel unless a cease fire was observed and Israel stopped its attacks on the Palestinians.
Arafat made the remark during a news conference following his talks with visiting British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on the ways to put an end to the two weeks of bloody clashes between the Palestinians and Israeli forces.
"It a pre-requisite that firing and aggression on our facilities, cities and people should be ceased before any three or four-way summit is considered," he stressed.
The Palestinian leader criticized Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak as "an unfaithful true peace partner," pointing out that Barak had opposed the Oslo Accord which was signed in l993 when he was Israeli army's chief of staff.
Cook said British Prime Minister Tony Blair was very upset by the recent wave of violence in the Middle East, expressing hope that the current crisis could be resolved soon.
"I still have hope that there would be a way forward to negotiations and deescalation and relaunching the peace talks," he added.
Also on early Friday morning, Arafat met Javier Solana, the EU security and foreign policy commissioner and exchanged views on the means to end violence in the region.
During the meeting, Arafat denounced Thursday's Israeli attacks on Palestinian institutions in the Palestinian self-rule Gaza, Ramallah, Jericho, and Nablus as "a major crime committed against the Palestinian people."
Solana said he was still optimistic about a resolution to the fierce confrontations between the Palestinians and Israeli forces, stressing that "we can always find a way out."
Israeli choppers on Thursday bombed Palestinian targets in Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Ramallah in retaliation for the death of three Israeli soldiers by angry Palestinians in Ramallah.
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