Arafat's Visit to Syria Aims at Mending Bilateral Ties: Shaath

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's upcoming visit to Syria is aimed at mending ties between the two sides, a senior Palestinian official said on Sunday.

"Promoting and deepening relations between Syria and Palestine is a must in the light of continuous Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian people," Nabil Shaath, Palestinian minister of International Cooperation, told the Cairo-based Voice of Arabs radio by phone from Damascus, Syria.

"The current circumstances are favorable to developing bilateral ties," Shaath said, adding that "the two sides share identical views regarding principles necessary to restart negotiations with Israel."

On whether the Syrian-Palestinian rapprochement can lead to the resumption of the principle of "inseparability" of Arab negotiating tracks with Israel, Shaath said that "we would not allow these tracks to be tampered with again."

Arafat is scheduled to visit Syria on September 12-13 to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Shaath announced earlier in the day after his talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Faruk Shareh.

Shaath arrived in Damascus on Friday for a several-day visit to prepare for Arafat's upcoming trip, his first official visit to Syria since 1996.

Ties between the Palestinians and Syria have soured since the Palestinians signed the Oslo peace accords with Israel in 1993.

Syria demands that Israel withdraw from all the lands it occupied in the 1967 Mideast War, including the Golan Heights and the northeast bank of the Sea of Galilee, while Israel refuses to cede any access to the lake, its major water source.

In July last year, Syria refused to receive Arafat, who made intensive diplomatic contacts to garner support for the Palestinians after the ill-fated Camp David summit with Israel.

Arafat travelled to Damascus in June last year to attend the funeral of Syrian late President Hafez al-Assad and met briefly with Assad's son and successor, Bashar al-Assad.






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