Albawaba.com
Damascus – Cairo
The former speaker of the Palestinian National Council, Khaled Fahoum, has said he expects that the gaps in the Palestinian- Syrian relations will be bridged during the two-day Arab Summit, which opened in Cairo on Saturday.
The Damascus-based Palestinian figure, who has recently mediated between the two sides for a reconciliation, built his expectations on the fact that the two sides have adopted the same stand at the summit, with both calling for the implementations of international resolutions regarding the Israeli occupation of Arab land, and the ongoing violence in the Palestinian territories.
Fahoum added in an interview with Albawaba.com Saturday that last week’s phone conversation between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was an indicator of rapprochement.
The former speaker ruled out that the Sharm el Sheikh accord, in which Israel and the Palestinians agreed to stop violence last week, was not “a reason for the ties between the two sides to remain severed, since both stand now in one line in the face of the Zionists who are occupying Arab land and point their guns at the naked chests of our people in the West Bank and Gaza.”
In Cairo, official sources expected a meting between Assad and Arafat Saturday evening at the former’s residence.
Fahoum showed optimism regarding the results expected from the Arab summit, saying the meeting “will not fail this time… since Arabs have substantial differences with Israel.”
He added that certain differences among the Arab leaders on the measures to be taken against Israel are there, but this does not mean in any way that the summit will fail.
“There are countries, including Palestine, that demand a cessation of all forms of normalization with Israel, which is a just demand, while others, namely Egypt and Jordan, object to this because they consider normalization the path for political settlement.”
“But these contradictory positions will not lead to disagreement that will cause the summit to fail.”
Fahoum called on the Arab leaders to remove all Arab-Arab differences and take supportive stands in favor of the Palestinian people, and their pursuit of independence.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
