Palestinian President Yasser Arafat insisted Friday on the right to declare a state despite warnings against doing so unilaterally and said many countries had a direct stake in an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact, reported AFP.
"We have the right to declare it," Arafat told reporters in Helsinki after meeting Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
Speaking for several hours later in Oslo, the Palestinian president said the drive to forge a peace accord with Israel was a matter of concern to many countries.
"Peace is not only a need for the Palestinians and the Israelis and the Arabs but it is an international need also," Arafat said following talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
"Christians and Muslims must have accepted rights in Jerusalem," he said.
NORWAY URGES CAUTION ON PALESTINIAN STATE
Norway, which helped broker 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, urged Arafat to be wary of declaring independence without Israel's consent, said Reuters.
“Our opinion is that there should be an agreement on a Palestinian state and that it should be part of an agreement between the parties,” Stoltenberg told reporters at the news conference held at Oslo airport.
Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland also said any deal with Israel, completing the inconclusive Camp David summit last month, would mean that any Palestinian “state can trul
y be sovereign and live in peace with Israel.”
Arafat said he was returning to Gaza for an "important" meeting Saturday with the PLO executive council. He planned to leave later that day for Beijing where he would inform Chinese officials of his views, he said.
Arafat said that he spoke by telephone with former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres who was also in Oslo, but a planned meeting between the two men did not take place as expected.
ANOTHER PEACE SUMMIT IS POSSSIBLE
In Helsinki earlier, Arafat evoked the possibility of US President Bill Clinton convening another summit meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, according to AFP.
Clinton had "mentioned to us, both of us, to me and to Mr. Barak before leaving Camp David, that he will do his best to have another meeting very soon, maybe at the end of this month," Arafat said.
The White House said Monday it had made no decisions on organizing such a gathering.
Earlier on Friday, the Kremlin had also urged extreme caution about proclaiming statehood. Norway's NTB news agency quoted Arafat as saying in Helsinki that he would visit China after Gaza.
Arafat has vowed to declare an independent Palestinian state whether or not Israel and the Palestinians forge a final peace by their September 13th target date.
He has promised to keep to the deadline, but on one occasion left room for doubt by saying “unless Arab leaders saw otherwise.”
Arafat expressed hopes for new contacts with Israel.
“I hope we will continue in spite of all what we have faced...because peace is not only a Palestinian need, not only an Israeli need, not only an Arab need, but an international need,” he was quoted by Reuters as saying – (Several Sources)
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