|
Abbas: Arafat is leader
27/07/2003 08:04 - (SA)
New York - Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas said in an interview released on Saturday that he cannot govern independently of Yasser Arafat.
"He is the leader of the Palestinian people," Abbas told Newsweek. "I cannot be independent."
The interview appeared as Abbas wrapped up a series of meetings with US officials in Washington on the implementation of the so-called "roadmap" to Mideast peace, which would found a Palestinian state by 2005.
President George W Bush gave Abbas a warm welcome on Friday, but pointedly did not invite Arafat, whom Washington sees as tainted by links to terrorism.
Bush did call Israel's security fence along its West Bank border "a problem", an assessment Abbas shared.
"It is an uncivilised wall," Abbas told the news weekly.
Abbas also repeated his response to the Bush administration's request to dismantle Hamas and Islamic Jihad, despite the unilateral cease-fire they and others radical groups declared on June 29.
"Why should we go to civil war against our own people?"
Even if these groups hold to the belief that Israel has no right to exist, Abbas said that, as long as they do not engage in violence, the radicals can "keep their slogans".
"I believe that if Israel can be confined within the 1967 borders, Hamas will live with it and will accept it. It's only 22% of the historical Palestinian territory," he said in the issue of Newsweek that appears on newsstands Monday.
"We are not going to miss this opportunity," Abbas said of the roadmap.
"We are going to grasp this opportunity." - Sapa-AFP
|
News
