Leaders cancel visit to Arafat

2004-11-08 09:33

Ramallah - Three of Yasser Arafat's top lieutenants have shelved plans to visit the ailing Palestinian leader in a Paris hospital Monday, the head of Arafat's office, Tayib Abdelrahim, said.

The decision by prime minister Ahmed Qorei, acting Palestine Liberation Organisation chairperson Mahmud Abbas and foreign minister Nabil Shaath came after Arafat's wife accused the trio of wanting to bury her husband alive.

"The delegation are not going now," Abdelrahim told a press conference. "We are trying to convince them to go."

Abdelrahim said the delegation wanted to go to France "to thank President (Jacques) Chirac and to meet with the foreign minister and meet President Arafat's doctors to get direct information" about his condition.

Arafat has been treated for a mystery blood disorder in a military hospital on the outskirts of Paris since October 29 and slipped into a coma in the middle of last week.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television, Suha had insisted that her husband was on the road to recovery and would return home but "Abbas, Qorei and Shaath, who are trying to inherit his power, want to bury Arafat alive".

"We are astonished by her comments," said Abdelrahim.

"Arafat is not owned by a small family. He is for all the Palestinian people and we pray to God that he comes back safe to achieve his dream of a Palestinian state."

Palestinian officials had privately expressed exasperation about the lack of information they were receiving about the health of Arafat. Suha is one of only a handful of people who have been authorised to see the 75-year-old head of the Palestinian Authority in the last 10 days.

- AFP