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Arabs stick with Yasser
SHARM EL-SHEIKH — Arab leaders will stand by Yasser Arafat as the “legitimate” Palestinian leader despite his absence at a summit here with US President George W. Bush, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said here yesterday. “Arafat is the elected legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and Abu Mazen is the prime minister,” Maher told reporters as Arab foreign ministers prepared for today’s summit in this Red Sea resort. In addition to meeting the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain, Bush will meet here for the first time with Mahmud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who the United States and Israel now support as their main Palestinian interlocutor. The United States and Israel have sidelined veteran leader Arafat, whom they blame for the breakdown of the peace process and the violence that erupted in September 2000.
His involvement in terrorism was bad enough, but his lapse into senility made it impossible...
But Maher, when asked by a reporter about Arafat’s role, scoffed at “all this nonsense of grooming Abu Mazen as a rival to Mr. Arafat,” saying it distracted from more important issues.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-06-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=15054