Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Saturday dismissed warnings from the head of Israel's army of a tougher response to the Palestinian uprising and said peace negotiations with Israel should start from where they left off with the outgoing Labor government, said reports.
"What is there left to use? Nuclear weapons" Arafat said of the threats by General Shaul Mofaz, during an interview with AFP in his Gaza City office.
Mofaz had warned earlier Saturday that the Israeli army will "go one step further" to put down violence "if the Palestinian Authority does nothing to stop it".
Arafat declined to comment on the selection Friday of Labor hawk Binyamin Ben Eliezer as defense minister in the incoming government led by right-winger Ariel Sharon, said the agency.
"We have to wait and see. We are not interfering in their internal affairs," Arafat said.
Asked about the possibility of a meeting with Sharon, Arafat stressed that after the Likud party leader was elected in the February 6 election he sent him a congratulatory message and spoke with him by telephone.
But Arafat said no indirect contacts were underway between him and Sharon.
However, Israeli reports said Friday that Arafat was seeking Turkey’s mediation to meet with the right-winger after Egyptian President refused to intervene.
Concerning an eventual resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Arafat said "all what has been agreed upon has to be respected by the two sides: Taba, Sharm el-Sheikh, Paris, Washington, Cairo," referring to accords or meetings between the two sides.
In Taba, an Egyptian Red Sea resort, the Palestinians held a week of talks with negotiators from the outgoing Labor government of Ehud Barak. Although no agreement was reached, the two sides issued a joint declaration saying they had made progress and were never closer to a deal.
But Sharon has made clear that his government does not consider itself committed by the Taba talks, which took as their basis of discussion a set of peace compromises by former US president Bill Clinton.
Arafat insisted that some concrete results came out of the Taba talks.
"We arrived at a conclusion. We have our witnesses, the European representative, (Miguel Angel) Moratinos, and the Egyptians," he said.
Arafat declined to explain what the Palestinians' attitude would be toward Sharon if he continued his refusal to recognize the results of the Taba talks. "We have to wait and see," he said.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take "parallel steps to reduce the violence and calm the situation," reported The Jerusalem Post newspaper Sunday.
Indyk specified the parallel steps, calling on Sharon "to ease the closure and pull back the army," and on Arafat "to take consistent and sustained steps... to curb the incitement, the violence, and the terror."
Indyk, said the Post, emphasized that Israelis and Palestinians must act together rather than wait to respond to each other. "It is not a question of who goes first," Indyk said – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
