Palestinian Authority Planning and International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath will meet Thursday in Damascus with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara, reported Haaretz, quoting press reports.
Shaath, who will be accompanied by Nablus Mayor Ghassan Shaka, will be meeting with Shara to prepare for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's scheduled visit to the Syrian capital and his meeting with President Bashar Al Assad next week.
Palestinian sources in Damascus were quoted Wednesday in the Arab daily Al Hayat as saying that the PA delegation would be bringing along a "political paper" comprising four main points. The most prominent is a call for increased diplomatic cooperation between the PA and Syria.
Two weeks ago, Arafat's deputy, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), visited the Syrian capital for the first time since 1983. A source close to Abbas told Haaretz on Wednesday that Arafat's deputy had made it clear to the Syrians that the PA would agree to coordination "on a ministerial level," but would not accept "Syrian dictates and decisions."
Up until a few months ago, Syria had shunned ties with the PA because the Palestinians did not coordinate their actions with Damascus at the time of the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1983.
However, at the Arab leaders' summit in Amman in March, Arafat met with Assad and the Syrian president expressed a desire to open a new page in the relationship between the PA and Damascus.
And Wednesday, at an Arab League emergency summit of foreign ministers, Syria made special efforts to appear to be Arafat's best friend, calling for a resumption of the Arab boycott of Israel.
Reports on the meeting said that Syria and Egypt were at loggerheads over the scope of measures to be taken against Israel – Albawaba.com
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