Jordanian king piles pressure on Arafat

Yasser Arafat should take “a long look in the mirror” and decide whether to step aside in the interest of his people, Jordan’s king said in an interview today.

It was a rare indication of Arab frustration with the Palestinian leader.

In an interview with The New York Times, King Abdullah also said Iraq’s next ruler should be a ”tough guy” with a military background capable of holding the shattered country together.

Israel and the United States often have pushed for Arafat to step aside, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell has harshly criticised the Palestinian leader in recent days.

Powell said Arafat “continues to take actions and make statements that make it exceptionally difficult to move forward,” and he suggested Palestinian and other Arab leaders should persuade him to make way for a more flexible successor.

However, even though Arab leaders have been frustrated by Arafat many times over the decades, they rarely discuss who should be in charge in a fellow Arab nation.

Jordan, a key regional mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, also is in a delicate situation: more than half its population is Palestinian and it must balance a friendship with the United States with rising Arab frustration over US policies toward Israel and Iraq.

Pressed in the Times interview about whether he agreed with Powell’s criticism of Arafat as an obstacle to peace, Abdullah, who has a British mother, said: “I think Arafat needs to have a long look in the mirror to be able to see whether his position is helping the Palestinian cause or not.”

Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister, and Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeineh both refused to comment on the king’s remarks.