Sharon urges Europe to cut Arafat ties

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today urged European leaders to cut off ties with Yasser Arafat, and a key Sharon aide said Israel would consider deporting the Palestinian leader if he continued trying to “scuttle the peace process”.

A senior Palestinian official claimed it was Sharon’s “incitement” against Arafat – that endangered peace moves.

The recriminations come at a delicate time, with violence markedly down but the sides deadlocked over Israel’s demand that militants be disarmed and the Palestinians’ demand Israel release thousands of prisoners.

Both Sharon and Abbas are expected to travel to Washington in coming weeks for meetings that could be crucial to the “road map” peace plan aimed at ending 33 months of Middle East fighting and lead to a Palestinian state by 2005.

Sharon, who also travels to London tomorrow to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was quoted in the Daily Telegraph as saying European officials were making “a major mistake” by maintaining links with Arafat.

A British parliamentary delegation visited Arafat at his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah today.

“Every act of this nature only postpones the progress in the process,” Sharon was quoted as saying.

“By that they are undermining Abu Mazen,” he added, referring to Abbas by his nickname.

Speaking to reporters after his meeting with the MPs, Arafat said Sharon’s remarks didn’t surprise him. “Is this the first time he says this?” Arafat asked.

“Did he forget what he said during the siege of Beirut?” he added, referring to Israel’s 1982 expulsion of Arafat and his loyalists from Lebanon.

Arafat spent over a decade in Tunis and returned to the Palestinian areas - after a quarter century’s exile – in 1994 under the interim peace accords that established autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Nationalists in Israel have called on Sharon to expel Arafat, who is accused by the United States and Israel of fanning the flames of terrorism against Israelis.

But Sharon has bowed to US pressure and to the assessment of his security advisers that Arafat could cause more harm in exile.

Sharon aide Raanan Gissin said Israel hadn’t changed “our policy on an Arafat deportation.

However, in our continuing contacts (with the United States) we indicated that if Arafat continues to try and scuttle peace process and undermine Abu Mazen we will have no recourse to bring the question to renewed discussion”.

Arafat has been stuck for about a year and a half in his office building at his Ramallah compound, which was mostly destroyed by Israel’s military.

Israel’s position is that he can travel abroad, but might not be allowed to return.

Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said Sharon’s comments amounted to “incitement” against Arafat and “can cause real harm for the peace process... We call on the international community to keep dealing with the Palestinian leadership as usual, including President Arafat as (its) head.”

Arafat has been partly sidelined since he reluctantly appointed Abbas to the newly created premier’s post in April.

But he retains considerable powers and remains the most popular Palestinian leader.

In recent days, Abbas came under scathing attack from Arafat loyalists for failing to wrest more concessions from Israel, and threatened to resign as prime minister unless Arafat’s Fatah movement endorsed his handling of contacts with Israel.

He also quit Fatah’s Central Committee, though his resignation was rejected.

Despite a two-week-old truce declared by Palestinian militant groups, implementation of the road map has been halting.

Israel pulled troops out of parts of Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem last week but refuses to hand over more towns until the Palestinian Authority disarms militant groups as required by the road map – Abbas is reluctant to do this for fear of civil war.

The Palestinians demand Israel release the estimated 7,000 Palestinian prisoners it holds, most on suspicion of involvement in terrorism.

Israel has agreed to release just several hundred.

Underscoring the explosiveness of the prisoner issue, local Hamas leader Nizar Rayan told a rally in Gaza yesterday that “if it won’t be possible to free the prisoners within the framework of the (truce), we will return to kidnapping Israeli soldiers and officers” in order to swap them for prisoners.

In a sign of tensions between the Palestinian leadership and armed groups, members of the Islamic militant Hamas fired bullets and hand grenades at police cars in Gaza City after a Hamas member was shot by bodyguards for Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan on Thursday, a Palestinian security source said.

Trying to restore peace momentum, the United States has invited Sharon to Washington at the end of July – almost two months earlier than scheduled.

Israeli media said Abbas also would be meeting President George W Bush in Washington in coming weeks.

But Abbas is under pressure to avoid such a visit until Arafat’s freedom of movement is guaranteed, and Palestinian officials said no arrangements have been made.