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Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - Web posted at 16:21:59 GMT Arafat's Fatah close to declaring truce for uprising anniversary JERUSALEM, Sept 10 (AFP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement is holding intensive talks on whether to declare an end to attacks in Israel for the second anniversary of the uprising, a Western diplomat said Tuesday. |
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The diplomat and Fatah officials said the movement had worked out a draft declaration on a halt to attacks inside the Jewish state in weeks of talks with the European Union (EU), but no final decision had been taken. The discussions appeared to be stuck on the resistance of some cells of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an ultra-violent spin-off of Fatah, to the proposed truce deal. Fatah said last month it was opposed to all such attacks, but the draft declaration published in the Israeli media Tuesday went further, saying they would actively prevent other groups from attacking civilians inside Israel. The Western diplomat told Nampa-AFP: "This text corresponds to what the majority of Fatah members think, including the Al-Aqsa Martyrs, but it's true that it has been released too early. "Whoever did so did it with ill intentions," he said, saying that its premature release could only weaken the initiative. He said the preamble to the statement specifically mentioned "the occasion of the second anniversary of the intifada," or uprising against Israeli occupation, that broke out on September 29, 2000. A Fatah leader for the West Bank, Hussein Sheikh, said the statement on a possible ceasefire had been worked out in lengthy talks with the EU but there was as yet no final agreement between the various wings of Fatah. "We did not agree on a final status for the statement but negotiations are continuing," he told Nampa-AFP. He said a formal declaration could be made within the coming days, but agreed the statement had been leaked too early. In Jenin, a statement by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was sent to Nampa-AFP slamming all talk of a ceasefire. "We deny all the media statements that talk about a ceasefire. This is not true and these people are not representative of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs and are not related to us," the Brigades said in a statement. "We are not stopping our fight and martyr operations in the West Bank or the occupied territory of 1948, and we will not sign any agreement," it said, using the militants' terms for suicide bombings and for the state of Israel. "We'll continue fighting until the end of the occupation," it said. Arafat himself said in a rare speech to the Palestinian parliament on Monday that he condemned "all kinds of terrorism," including on civilians inside Israel, but stopped short of ordering a halt to the attacks. Israel says Arafat is capable of shutting off the attacks but lacks the will to do so, whereas Palestinian officials say Israel's destruction of their security infrastructure has hampered their ability to prevent attacks. However, there have been no successful attacks inside Israel since a suicide bomber from the radical Islamic group Hamas blew up a bus in the north on August 4. Last week, however, police intercepted a van laden with 600 kilos (1,300 pounds) of explosives in northern Israel that could have caused one of the deadliest attacks to date inside the Jewish state. Fatah and the other main Palestinian factions have been locked into talks for months to thrash out a common front as their uprising against the Israeli occupation moves toward its third year. Arafat said Monday that suicide bombings and shooting attacks have given Israel an excuse to reoccupy the West Bank and dismantle his administration, as well as declare the 1993 Oslo accords on Palestinian self-rulf a dead letter. Both Israel and the United States want Arafat replaced as leader of the Palestinians. Nampa-AFP |
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