The Palestine Liberation Organization has given up its attempt to send a shipload of Palestinian deportees on a “voyage of return” to Israel — but only for the time being, a ranking PLO official stressed here Wednesday.
“Gentlemen, I would like to announce the postponement of the trip,” Sheik Abdel Hamit Sayeh, president of the Palestinian National Council, the PLO’s quasi-legislative body told reporters at a news conference here. He insisted the postponement, though indefinite, was not a cancellation.
Sayeh spoke two days after the Cypriot car ferry Sol Phryne, which the PLO had purchased for the voyage, was disabled by an underwater explosion in Limassol harbor, Cyprus, for which the PLO blamed Israeli agents.
Asked why none of the Arab countries that have merchant marines offered to provide the PLO with another ship, Sayeh said those countries are in a state of war with Israel and their vessel would be attacked when it reached Israeli waters.
Sayeh blamed postponement of the trip on “Israel’s threats and terrorist methods.” He thanked the journalists who showed up for the PLO’s many news conferences here during the past two weeks. He effusively praised the Greek people, who he said demonstrated their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
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