Arafat to Visit US in April: AL ChiefPalestinian leader Yasser Arafat will pay a visit to Washington in April, the Cairo-based Arab League (AL) Secretary General Esmat Abdel-Meguid said here Wednesday.The AL chief disclosed the visit after talks with U.S. diplomats stationed in the region, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported. However, Abdel-Meguid did not say whether Arafat has been invited by the U.S. side. Abdel-Meguid praised the U.S. administration's rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's opposition to a visit by Arafat to Washington. The visit, Arafat's first since President George W. Bush took office in January, has yet to be confirmed by both the U.S. and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Israeli hardline leader Sharon, who is visiting the U.S., reportedly warned Bush that inviting Arafat to Washington "would be proof that terrorism pays." Earlier in the day, Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said in an interview that an Arafat-Bush meeting is important because it is impossible to make peace when one party to an peace accord is being ignored. During discussions with the U.S. diplomats, Abdel-Meguid also said that if the U.S. vetoes a U.N. Security Council resolution on deploying an observer force in the occupied Palestinian territories, Arab countries will ask for a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. The AL chief wrote to the Security Council a week ago, calling for the approval of a resolution on setting up and deploying an international security force to protect the Palestinian people as soon as possible. On March 11, the Arab foreign ministers attending the 115th session of the AL Council also asked the Security Council to hold an emergency meeting to discuss ways to provide international protection for the Palestinians. The U.S. has threatened to veto such proposals to deploy an international force in the Israeli-occupied territories in light of Israeli opposition. |
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