President Francois Mitterrand turned down a request by a Palestine Liberation Organization official for an audience. The President avoided meeting with Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO’s political department, by claiming that he had no time because he was leaving today for Budapest.
Kaddoumi arrived here yesterday as a member of an Arab League delegation which includes the Foreign Ministers of Kuwait and Algeria. The delegation is touring the capitals of all the counties that are ##manent members of the United Nations Security Council. The group is scheduled to visit London next and then possible will go to Washington.Mitterrand’s refusal to meet with Kaddoumi is not unprecedented. No PLO leader has yet been received at the Elysee Palace although PLO officials regularly confer with the Foreign Minister and other top Administration officials.
Kaddoumi met this morning with Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson to report that no decision has been taken by the PLO concerning French and American efforts to obtain its evacuation from west Beirut. Cheysson later told reporters that the PLO leadership trapped in west Beirut has apparently taken no final decision as yet.
According to reports from Beirut today, PLO leader Yasir Arafat rejected suggestions that the PLO evacuate Beirut under protection of American military forces but did not reject the involvement of U.S. troops in a multinational peacekeeping force to separate Israeli and Palestinian forces.
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