Arafat will miss Arab summit

Israelis ignore pressure from United States

TRACY WILKINSON LOS ANGELES TIMES

JERUSALEM -- Yasser Arafat announced Tuesday that he won't attend a key Arab summit, after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ignored U.S. pleas and set near-impossible conditions on the Palestinian Authority president's travel.

Arafat's absence is a blow to the Arab League gathering, which starts today in Beirut, Lebanon, and will discuss a potentially far-reaching Saudi peace initiative. In addition, Palestinian anger over Sharon's restrictions on Arafat could derail U.S.-mediated talks aimed at securing a cease-fire in vicious Israeli-Palestinian fighting that has killed about 1,500 people in 18 months.

Sharon, appearing on Israeli television's Arabic-language service, said the "conditions are not yet ripe" to lift Israel's travel ban on Arafat. Sharon said he might agree to release Arafat if he could then veto the Palestinian leader's return home in the event of a new attack against Israelis -- and if Washington, D.C., signed off on his de facto banishment.

Palestinian officials said such conditions amounted to blackmail and were a "dangerous provocation." Arafat issued a statement saying he had decided to remain with his "steadfast people" and deny Israel the chance to prevent his return to the West Bank.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the leader of one of only two Arab countries to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, also bowed out of the summit Tuesday, citing "domestic commitments."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher also rejected Sharon's new conditions, saying Israel had to issue a "round trip" for Arafat.

Sharon made the decision despite calls late Monday from Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell urging him to let Arafat travel to the summit. Even after Sharon's announcement, U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer went to see him to try again to persuade him to let Arafat go.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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