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Arafat Urges World Leaders to Help Defuse Orient House Crisis
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Saturday sent messages to several world leaders urging them to immediately move to end Israeli occupation of the Orient House, an unofficial Palestinian headquarters in East Jerusalem.
In the urgent messages to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, U. S. President George W. Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Arafat called on the leaders to" immediately move to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Orient House and other institutions," said Palestinian Local Government Minister Saeb Erekat on Saturday.
Letters were also sent to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the European Union presidency, the Organization of African Unity and the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), Erekat said.
Inclosed with each message a copy of a written pledge by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres which he handed over to the U.S. Administration and Norway in 1999 wherein he promised not to mistreat the Orient House and other Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, Voice of Palestine radio quoted Erekat as saying.
Arafat had refused to sign the Oslo accords before Israel pledged not to attack the Orient House and other Jerusalem-based Palestinian premises, Erekat said, adding that "Israel does not respect the agreements and has been trying to spoil them."
Early on Friday morning, Israeli army forcibly closed down and seized the Orient House and other nine Palestinian government premises in Jerusalem in the wake of a suicide bomb blast which killed 15 Israelis and wounded 100 others in central Jerusalem on Thursday.
Palestinian leadership on Friday asked Israel to pull out from the Orient House in order to prevent the tense situation from further deteriorating in the region.
Some countries, including the U.S. and Egypt, have lashed out at Israel's occupation of the Orient House and other Palestinian premises in Jerusalem.
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