Posted at 6:53 p.m. PST Saturday, December 6, 1997
Palestinians to gain strong Moslem support
TEHRAN, Dec 7 (Reuters) - An Islamic summit will give firm support to
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat while strongly criticising Israel's
policies towards the Middle East peace process, delegates said.
``There will be strong support for the Palestinians and there is
international unanimity that Israel's policy is going in the wrong
direction,'' said Egypt's Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.
He said the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) ``is in harmony
with the views expressed by the Arab League, the Organisation of African
Unity, the United Nations...that Israel is turning its back on the peace
process as a whole.''
Moussa was speaking to Egyptian journalists late on Saturday on the
sidelines of an OIC ministerial meeting preparing for this week's
55-member OIC summit in Tehran. Leaders representing some 1.2 billion
Moslems meet every three years.
Delegates said the wording of the OIC summit's final statement might not
refer directly to the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli peace accords but it was
expected to blast Israel for failing to honour agreements already
signed.
Arafat was due to arrive in Tehran on Monday after talks in Geneva on
Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She plans more
separate meetings with him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
this month.
OIC host Iran is a staunch opponent of the Arab-Israeli peace process
and has bitterly criticised Arafat for signing peace accords with the
Jewish state which, along with the United States, is the Islamic
republic's declared enemy.
But Moussa, whose country has no diplomatic ties with Iran, said Tehran
was not trying to influence the final statement ``and is going along
with the mainstream of member states.''
``The State of Palestine'' is a full member of the OIC which was set up
in 1969 mainly in response to the burning of the Moslem faith's third
holiest shrine -- al-Aqsa mosque in Israeli-held Arab East Jerusalem.
The OIC is based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia but its aspiration is to
establish permanent headquarters in Jerusalem, the holy city which
members insist is the capital of Palestine. Israel says the united city
is its eternal capital.
Albright, trying to set up ``final status'' Israeli-Palestinian talks
which would include Jerusalem's future, is pushing Israel to carry out a
new troop withdrawal in the West Bank and the Palestinians to crack down
on Moslem extremists.
Some OIC delegates doubted if an Israeli proposal for an as yet
unspecified West Bank pullback would lead to a major breakthrough.
A senior delegate close to the peace process said: ``As the offer now
stands I do not think much will come out of it.''
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