Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek, one of the three foreign ministers of the European Community currently assigned to deal with Middle East issues, received a two-member Palestinian delegation at The Hague on Monday.
It was the first time a foreign minister of Holland met officially with Palestinians.
His visitors were Hanan Ashrawi, spokeswoman of the Palestinian delegation engaged in bilateral talks with Israel, and Nabil Sha’ath, political adviser to Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat at PLO headquarters in Tunis.
Ashrawi, though not a member of the official Palestinian delegation, nevertheless represents it before the world news media.
They reportedly discussed with van den Broek ways that Holland might contribute to the Middle East peace process and whether the PLO’s status in the Netherlands could be upgraded.
At present, the PLO is allowed to have an information office in The Hague but no representative with diplomatic status.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
